Sword Art Online: Generations
by Forest Dragon Slayer
Summary: Yui has been successfully brought to the real world and is now a high school student. When a threat from Kirito's past in Sword Art Online appears in the latest VRMMO Soul Art Online, how will they deal with it. *Sorry, not a very good summary* Main Pairings: YuixOC and KiritoxAsuna
1. Link Start: Yui and her partner

**Hello people in the Sword Art Online Fanfiction world! I am Forest Dragon Slayer presenting a Sword Art Online fanficiton. First off, I have to say that SAO was one of my favorite anime of all time and I really wanted to make a fanfic for it but I couldn't think of anything for fanfic ideas due to wondering about what to do for such an awesome series. It's like how I couldn't think of a fanfic for One Piece or Naruto because the story has already progressed so far. Then, I got an inspiration from a fellow Fanfiction author and this fanfic he/she wrote. I want to say thanks to that person and sorry that I can't remember your pen name or the name of the fanfic. Anyway, this fanfic will be about Yui's life after finally brought into the real world through the use of some way that I have not yet completely thought of. In fact, if anyone wants to make one up for me, feel free to. In any case, I hope you enjoy this fanfic.**

**I don't own Sword Art Online, Reki Kashiwara does**

_Prologue…_

"Yui-chan, wake up." At the sound of that voice, Yui began to open her eyes to see the two people she thought of as her Papa and Mama, Kazuto and Asuna. What confused her was that they were in an unfamiliar place to her.

"Mama, Papa, where are we? I don't recognize this place." Yui asked as she sat up. Kazuto and Asuna Kirigaya just smiled at their foster daughter.

"Yui-chan, this is the real world." Asuna replied to Yui's shock.

"That's right, we were able to bring you here." Kazuto said seeing the girl's expression. "You even have a real body."

"Mama, Papa!" Yui's expression soon turned to joy as she hugged her parents in the real world for the first time. The three of them then shared a moment of bliss now that their family was now truly together.

_Several years later…_

Due to her being a former AI, Yui had trouble during the first few months after her coming to the real world with natural emotions or reactions towards certain things that she hadn't learned yet. After getting used to the real world, Kazuto and Asuna decided to enroll Yui in school where she made many friends her age. This brings us to where we are now, Kirigaya Yui, now at the physical age of 16 was walking home from school with her friends. She now looked similar to her mother in terms of appearance along with having the same hair style. However, her hair and eye color were the same as her father.

"Hey Yui-chan, want to go to a cake buffet today? A new one just opened up downtown." One of Yui's friends said to her making small talk.

"Sorry Kaya-chan, but I'll have to pass today. I promised that I'd meet up with someone today." Yui replied.

"Oh? Is it a guy?" Kaya asked with a mischievous smile.

"It's just a friend in the VR world!" Yui exclaimed in denial. Just as her friends were going to continue with questions, the said girl in question bumped into a tall guy which caused Yui's friends to become fearful. The said guy just continued on his way walking across the street without a word and after he was out of sight, there was a sigh of relief.

"That was scary." Another one of Yui's friends named Sanae said fearfully. "Wasn't that the delinquent that transferred in last week? Yui-chan, you should be careful, he's in your class right?"

"I'll be fine, my Aunt Suguha taught me how to defend myself just in case." Yui said confidentially. "Anyway, I gotta go, bye!" After saying farewell to her friends, she headed to her house. When she entered the cozy looking building, she could smell something delicious from the kitchen. It was most likely her mother cooking dinner. "Mama, I'm home!"

"Welcome back Yui-chan." Asuna said hearing her daughter come in. "Remember to log out before dinner." She added knowing how Yui always dived into the virtual world after getting home from school.

"Got it! You better remember not to push yourself too hard." Yui called out knowing how her mother was pregnant before closing the door to her room. After changing out of her school uniform, she lay down on her bed and put on the latest public version of the Nerve Gear after the Amusphere which was developed by her father, Kazuto. With a smile, she uttered the voice command "Link Start!" and the device on her head began to pull her conscious into the virtual world. When she opened her eyes again, she was in Soul Art Online which coincidentally was also developed by her father. The program and world of the game itself was based on the Alclization world that Kazuto/Kirito was in several years ago. The device didn't just intercept the brain's signals to the body, but it instead connected to her Fluctlight otherwise known as their soul or consciousness. However, it didn't just have components from Alclization. Kazuto Kirigaya had put in things from the different VRMMOs that were a big part of his life like guns from Gun Gale Online, magic from Alfheim Online, and of course, Sword Skills from Sword Art Online. Currently, Yui was logged in as the avatar «Yui» in the house that she and her parents shared in the game which was similar to that house on the 22nd floor of both the old and new Aincrad. Her in-game appearance looked similar to that of Kirito's feminine looking avatar from Gun Gale Online except more feminine and the fact that she was an actual girl. Her equipment looked like a black colored version of her mother's Knights of Blood uniform. After checking that her two swords, one rapier and the other a long sword were in their sheathes on her back, Yui ran out of the house and used her high sprint skill to dash off to the teleport gate in the nearby town.

_A few minutes later…_

"Where is he? We were supposed to meet up here." Yui wondered as she reached a clearing in the forest she was currently in. She was so busy looking around that she didn't notice a figure coming up behind her. With a grin, the new person took a small handful of water from the stream next to them and poured it on the back of her neck making her yelp in surprise before turning around to see a brown haired boy laughing at Yui's reaction. This was the person that Yui was meeting up with, a fellow player with the in game name of Steel who's also been her partner in the game. He wore black armor and on his back was a large long sword. "Steel-kun, why'd you do that!?" Yui exclaimed at the laughing boy with a slight pout.

"Sorry, I just couldn't resist." Steel replied with a grin as his laughter died down. "You were late so I decided to get you for that."

"If you're gonna be like that, then no food for you!" Yui exclaimed now with a triumphant grin on her face as Steel's now went into a panic.

"I'm extremely sorry for my transgressions." Steel said in a defeated tone. Like her mother, Yui had raised her cooking skill to the max and the food she made was delicious. Yui just giggled at this and threw him a sandwich which he caught and began to eat. "Anyway, let's get going, the boss raid meeting for the one that appeared nearby Yulez **(An in game city I made up)** is going to start soon. Yui nodded and after they finished their sandwiches, they ran off for the city. Luckily, when they arrived at the meeting place, they weren't late but in fact a little early as players were just crowding around talking to others.

"At least we're not late." Yui said with a bit of relief.

"Yui, you're here too?" Yui turned around to see to her surprise Klein, a friend of her father's. "Man, it's been a while since we fought the same boss together."

"You know him Yui?" Steel asked curiously.

"He's a friend of my parents IRL." Yui replied. "He's like a weird uncle to me."

"For some reason, I can picture that." Steel said making Yui laugh a little.

"Teens these days, they don't respect their elders." Klein said after hearing that. He then looked from Yui to Steel before going up to Yui to whisper something to her. "Hey Yui, do you by any chance li-" Klein didn't get to finish his question before Yui kicked him in the nuts making him fall over in pain. "Yup, she's his kid alright." Klein said in grimace remembering the times Kirito did the same thing to him. Steel just sweat dropped at the scene and was confused somewhat as he didn't hear what was being said.

"HaHaHa, you know you shouldn't be angering her Klein since she can have her mother's temper." The deep voice of Agil, the axe wielder caused the group to turn to him. _So tall! _Steel thought in shock as he saw the height of the newcomer. Agil saw Steel's reaction on his face and the bald man just laughed again. "Yeah, I get that a lot on the first meeting. Anyway, you ready for the boss?"

"You bet we are!" Steel said with enthusiasm no longer shocked by Agil's height. It was then that the boss raid meeting was called to start.

_Afterwards…_

"Man, I really don't see why we need these anymore." Klein said with a tone of annoyance. "The way they were going on about it, it was as if the world would end if we failed."

"It does make the fight more efficient." Yui said trying to stay positive.

"Well, it was boring though." Steel said with a yawn agreeing with Klein. "I'd rather figure out the enemy while I'm fighting it."

"Let's see if you can actually do that, we're here." Agil said as they and the other players arrived at the clearing the size of two football fields put side by side which was where the boss was supposed to be.

"I can see the clearing, but where's the boss?" Yui asked becoming suspicious of the situation as she got her rapier in her right hand and her long sword in her left. Steel, Klein and Agil picked up on her suspicions and took out their weapons as well.

"Above us!" The shout got everyone's attention as they looked up to see a giant monster in a web above them. It looked to be the combination of a praying mantis and a spider and was pitch black in color. The system had identified that the boss had been seen and began identifying it to the players. It was labeled as «Praxiach the Slasher» with a yellow cursor above its head and 5 health bars appearing next to it. With a hiss, it fell from the web it was on and landed in the center of the clearing, the players having already scattered and surrounded it.

"Mages, begin casting healing spells for later, shieldsmen, block the upcoming attack, everyone else attack it's abdomen after it finishes its combo!" The boss raid leader exclaimed getting everyone to their senses as they got into formation. The shieldsmen got into position and attacked with their pistols to get the boss's attention before raising their shields to block the supposedly incoming attack. However, to everyone's surprise, it had decided to jump over the shieldsmen and target the boss raid leader. The said person was caught by surprise and had no time to get away as the boss's scythe-like arms began to glow a dark red color before it slashed at his body making his HP drop to zero before he shattered into data bits.

"There goes our "leader"." Steel said as he saw varying people beginning to panic and the formation was starting to fall apart. "What the heck happened there anyway? The boss just went against the basic algorithm that all monsters share."

"Everyone, stay in formation, we can still do this!" Yui exclaimed taking on the leadership role, trying to get everyone back to their senses. "Everyone, stay away from the boss's front and focus on attacking it from the sides and from behind! I'll stop its arms!" _As expected of the Black Princess. _Steel thought to himself remembering how Yui had the charisma of a leader sometimes giving her that title as she charged at the boss, its scythe like arms beginning to glow green this time. In response, Yui got into a battle stance, the sword in her left hand glowing orange signaling the activation of the 2 hit one handed sword skill «Vertical Arc» in order to parry the incoming attacks. She ignored the damage she got from parrying the first slash and then switched her mind's focus on the rapier in her right hand and began to ready for another sword skill, letting her left arm continue with the system assisted motion. After «Vertical Arc» was finished, Yui then gave a short shout before executing a high class skill using her rapier called «Flashing Penetrator». About midway, she again switched focus to her long sword, letting the system control her right arm and began to charge up for another sword skill. Almost immediately after the current skill was finished, she struck out once more with «Vertical Square» to parry the incoming blades coming at her. Normally, the player would have a freeze period, its length depending on how high leveled the skill was, where they wouldn't be able to move after using the skill. However, in the case of Yui who's using two swords, once the current skill is almost done, all she has to do is charge up for a skill with the other sword to cancel out that freeze effect. This was the outside skill known as «Skill Connect». Unfortunately, fighting like this is very mentally draining as the person would have to switch between using one side of their brain to the other in the process and the person had to be extremely precise in timing. Yui was already beginning to show signs of tiredness as she missed the timing to connect her next skill leaving her open to the boss's incoming attack.

_Clang_

"What would you do without me?" Steel said in a semi joking tone with a grin before he turned to face the boss. He had blocked both scythe arms into a deadlock with his sword just moment before Yui would have been hit. "Eat lead you overgrown insect!" Steel exclaimed before he pulled on what seemed to be a trigger at his blade's hilt firing bullets from the small holes protruding from the sides of his blade causing the boss to lose some HP. "Everyone, strike at its abdomen while it's focused on me!" Hearing that, everyone else except Yui rushed over to the backside (as well as its weak side) of the boss and began either striking at the weak spot with their weapons, shot at it with their guns, or fired magic attacks. To Steel and Yui's surprise however, despite the fact that its health bar was dropping drastically, the boss kept on trying to push through Steel's parry not paying any heed to its assaulters behind it. Seeing the boss's final health bar starting to get low, Yui decided to finish it and used Steel's back as a launching pad and then activated the rapier skill «Star Splash» in midair. The jabs of the thin sword landed one after another on the boss's body, all spectacularly hitting their mark, and the boss's HP decreased. Each individual blow didn't deliver much damage, but the number of hits was overwhelming. After getting hit by three short thrusts, the boss's guard went slightly up, and Yui switched her targeting to slash twice at its midsection. Then with her blade tip shining blindingly white, she sent two strong jabs high and low.

"Steel-kun, switch!" Yui said as she performed a strong stab. The boss deflected the blow with the left scythe arm and bright sparks came flying off. But that was an already expected outcome. The enemy was left stunned for a moment after guarding against the strong attack, unable to immediately counter. Also, since one of its arms left Steel to block Yui's attack, he was free to strike. After charging up for a sword skill, he let loose the high class one handed sword skill «Vorpal Strike» with a blood colored light effect making its reach double that of the actual blade and with a large amount of power. After that strike stabbed through the creature's upper body, the boss let out a screech before it shattered into countless blue shards made from the polygons that it was created from as the words 'Congratulations' appeared above the players causing them to cheer for their victory.

_Several minutes later…_

"Steel-kun, thanks for the save back there." Yui said with a shy smile as they were walking down the streets of Yulez. Everyone else had decided to go to an ale house to celebrate so the two of them were basically alone save for the NPCs and other random players passing by them.

"No problem, what are friends for?" Steel said with a grin. "Certainly not for letting friends fall victim to ugly things like that one." He said this with a laugh afterwards. For some reason, Yui just became increasingly nervous. _Come on Yui, you can do this! _Yui mentally exclaimed to herself. To explain, Yui has recently developed feelings for the guy she had called a partner for the past year or so and with after telling her mother about it she was encouraged to convey said feelings.

"St-Steel-kun." Yui said all of a sudden surprising the boy in question.

"What's up?" Steel said in response, completely oblivious to the current atmosphere.

"I, I li-" Yui was about to finish her sentence before she heard an alarm in her head which she had set to 5 minutes before she had to log out. Although Steel couldn't hear said alarm, he was at least able to pick up on the fact that one sounded in his partner's head from her facial expression.

"It seems that you need to log out don't you? You can tell me whatever it was you were trying to say later." Steel said with his usual grin. Yui just mentally face palmed for the terrible timing and her partner being so relaxed even during something like that. Giving up for the moment on continuing, Yui just pulled up the menu and pressed the logout button. "By the way, be careful of anything attacking you from now on." He said with a more serious expression before her consciousness left the virtual world. When she opened her eyes again, she was in her bedroom again.

"What did he mean by that?" Yui asked herself before she got up and went down to help her mother set up for dinner.

_The next day…_

"To do this problem…" The teacher's droning voice went through the classroom as he showed how to do a problem on the board. Yui at this moment was completely bored. Due to being a former AI, the math problems currently being shown were like child's play to her calculating abilities. Also, she couldn't focus on anything else besides what Steel had said yesterday. _I still can't figure it out yet, but it seems that he's figured out about something that could be dangerous. _Yui thought to herself. "Pay attention!" The voice of the teacher shook her from her thoughts and she began to mentally prepare an apology to the him for not focusing only to find that it wasn't directed at her but at the person sitting at the corner seat next to the window, Kurogane Takeshi, the before mentioned delinquent. Although he was called a delinquent, he actually hasn't done anything delinquent worthy and just had the appearance of one. "Kurogane, do the next problem on the board!" Silently, the teenager got out if his seat and went to the board, solving the problem with relative ease making the teacher annoyed if anything as he said "Correct" with a slight growl in his voice. Almost right after that, the bell signaling lunch time sounded through the school and students began moving out of their seats to get lunch or to meet up with friends.

"Yui-chan, we're here!" Kaya exclaimed as she and Sanae walked into the classroom. "Come on, let's go eat on the roof!"

_On the roof…_

"Ne, Yui-chan, how'd the boss raid go yesterday?" Kaya asked as she bit into her food aware of the battle event since she and Sanae were players themselves.

"We had some trouble at first but we pulled through to the end." Yui replied with a smile. "Although, something about it was strange."

"It seems other players noticed it as well." Sanae said calmly. "After the battle yesterday, I heard some of them talking about how this boss had an abnormal battle algorithm which made it focus on the players that had the leadership role in the group unlike the normal mobs which focus on the players that deal damage to it."

"Is that even possible for a monster AI?" Kaya asked with an incredulous look on her face.

"The programming my Papa put into the game allowed the monsters to have an adaptation system but it seems this boss was programmed that way from the start." Yui said thinking about the situation and its unusualness.

"I think something fishy is going on here, we're going to stick with you and protect you in-game then until we can figure out what!" Kaya said with enthusiasm.

"That may be hard considering you two are at least 15 levels below me." Yui said with a nervous chuckle at Kaya's personality of running into things without thinking.

"I believe our levels are sufficient enough to help you against normal monsters." Sanae said as she sipped her tea. "Shall we meet up later today in SAO?" **(Yeah, I just realized they have the same acronym. Maybe Kazuto/Kirito made it that way?) **

"Fine" Yui said giving in. _I was going to go hunting with Steel-kun today but it looks I'm not. _She thought to herself.

_Later on in the game … _

"Yosh, let's get some hunting done!" Kaya exclaimed as her avatar «Kana» the scarlet haired katana wielder. "What comes out in these fields again?"

"During the evening time, the most common monster in this forest area would be the «Savage Wolfmen» , one of those demi human types." Sanae said as her avatar «Raven», the purple haired spear wielding mage. "Their average level is 56 so we should be safe level wise seeing as we're all above level 75." Yui suddenly tensed up.

"My detection skill has picked up on monsters coming towards us, it's the Wolfmen." Yui said as she drew her two swords. Her companions also readied themselves for the coming battle. After a few seconds, 4 monsters came into view looking the same as usual similar to a silver werewolf that wore ripped pants. It wasn't the monsters themselves that frightened them, it was the cursor that showed its name and level.

"What the, they're around level 85!" Kana exclaimed in shock.

"What's more, there are 6 of the same thing coming as well." Raven noted seeing how the mobs were starting to surround them.

"What's with this? The monsters far outnumber us and they've got higher levels to boot!" Kana said becoming angry with the system.

"Kana-chan, calm down, we can still fight back if we play our cards right." Yui said with the expression of a leader on her face. Seeing said expression made Kana calm herself down.

"So what's the plan princess?" Kana said with a grin.

"Kana, start chanting the spell for your katana, Raven, I'm going to need you to debuff their dexterity." Yui said. Kana immediately started chanting a spell, the words surrounding her blade as she spoke them.

"Understood." Raven said as she began to chant a spell as well. "Kuraho Shoyeti Domini Osera Naibala Ikano!" After the spell's incantation was finished, magic energy came from Raven's spear and hit the closing in Wolfmen giving them a temporary paralysis.

"It's my turn!" Kana exclaimed her katana now with fire surrounding the blade. Her katana was a rare monster drop called «Kaiken» that allowed her to increase the attack power of her blade and give it fire properties with the use of a certain spell. "Flaming Cyclone!" Using a combination of a Katana sword skill and the fire properties of her blade, she used a spinning slash blasting fire towards all enemies surrounding the user. Due to the paralysis spell, the majority of the monsters couldn't even attempt to dodge the fire blast and got dealt a considerable amount of damage, some also receiving the burn debuff. "All right! This battle is in the bag!"

"Keep your guard up, the battle isn't over!" Yui said as she ran towards the somewhat weakened Wolfmen charging up for a sword skill. The Wolfmen too began their charge, their hands charging up for a skill being one of the few species of monsters to use «Martial Arts» skills. Yui then released the charged up rapier skill «Flashing Penetrator» and swung her sword at three of the monsters with a presence that overwhelmed everything around her. She saw that the three Wolfmen's HP had gone into the red zone and jumped back to widen the distance between them. After landing, she went straight into a charge attack. She dashed towards the beasts, leaving a trail of light behind her as if she was a comet. With a sound effect similar to a sonic boom, the comet penetrated the first one, causing the huge monster burst into numerous bits of light and scattered. The surviving two then charged at Yui activating the Martial Arts skill «Embracer» causing their hands to glow yellow as they struck at her. Kana immediately got in the way and blocked with her katana, still receiving a good deal of damage due to the level difference and the fact that her weapon was more built for speed.

"Tsuyana Riano Bakeri Toikam Saduru!" Raven shouted from behind them using a spell. Upon completion, medium sized birds made of a purple magic energy came from her spear and attacked the Wolfmen trying to get through Kana's parry causing them to fall back which gave Kana and Yui the chance to cut them down making them shatter into several polygons. To the girls' surprise, the remaining Wolfmen then stopped charging for them and began to just surround them instead of targeting the player that dealt the most damage like normal monsters. Furthering their shock, spell words began floating around their opponents which indicated the incantation of a spell as their eyes began to glow green.

"Impossible, the monsters aren't supposed to be able to use spells!" Kana exclaimed as the Wolfmen began to glow a bright purple signaling the use of the spell «Lunar Destruction», a high class ranged attack spell. With a roar, each of the Wolfmen blasted a powerful energy beam at the group. _If those all hit us, our HP will go down to 0. _Yui thought with slight panic._ I know that we won't actually die if we die here but I can't shake off the feeling that something bad will happen if we die from this. _With these thoughts, Yui began to charge up her long sword for a sword skill to cut down the spell projectiles using the outside skill «Spell Blast». Although the spells were supposed to be light effects, there's a hit designation that is created by hitting the center of the spells. Also, the center of the spell must not be hit by an ordinary attack, but by a sword skill that hits it at the point at high speeds. However, it was already beyond insane to try to capture the center of the spell when using a sword swing that couldn't be controlled due to system assistance and it was almost impossible. With a shout, Yui unleashed the 7 hit sword skill «Deadly Sins». Through a system controlled movement, she slashed at the incoming spell projectiles while Raven began to chant a support spell to increase her party's defense knowing that Yui wouldn't be able to destroy them all. Yui was able to cut apart the first 4 but unfortunately missed the last three which hit all three of them directly making their HP fall extremely close to zero even with the support spell blocking some of the damage.

"We won't be able to take another hit." Yui said with a pant. "Even with my «Battle Healing» skill or healing spells, it wouldn't be enough." Out of the corner of her eye she saw that somebody was calling her using the telepathy system that could be used among those registered as friends. Hesitantly, she answered it with the push of the button and a voice came into her head.

_"Yui, can you hear me?" _

"Steel-kun?" Yui said in surprise.

_"Listen, you may want to duck." _

"Huh?" Yui responded in confusion before seeing something blue shoot past her missing her by a hair before it collided with one of the Wolfmen. Upon impact, the object exploded causing the Wolfman to shatter into data bits. Having kept the normal monster algorithm of appearing surprised at a change of attack pattern, the Wolfmen had stopped the recasting of the earlier spell and looked around for the enemy. Without warning, two more projectiles covered in blue light hit two more Wolfmen before exploding and shattering those two into data bits. In reaction to the 3 sneak attacks, the remaining 4 Wolfmen went into a more a defensive stance. Unfortunately for one of them, it soon had a blade in its body. The one holding the blade was Steel himself.

"Eat lead." Steel said as he pulled the trigger causing bullets to fire from within the monster's body making its HP go to zero before its body shattered into polygons. "Again, what would you do without me?" He said with a grin as he walked over to the group, his sword on his shoulder. The three girls could only stare in shock and slight relief. "Luckily, you forgot to tell me that you were going to be with other friends today or else I wouldn't have been trying to find you. Heal up and I'll block the next attack." As he said this, the 3 remaining Wolfmen had grouped together deciding to use power over quantity as all three charged up for the same spell. "Man, who gave these monsters magic powers?" He asked as the Wolfmen fired their purple energy beams. Steel couldn't help but grin as he decided to take the challenge on but without using «Spell Blast» like Yui had attempted to do earlier. He held his sword in a certain position as it began to glow green before he activated the only known defense sword skill for the one handed sword, «Spinning Shield». Using the system assist, Steel began spinning his sword in his right hand at an extremely fast speed, making it a semitransparent shield to block the incoming attacks negating a majority of the damage he would have received which was soon recovered due to his «Battle Healing» skill.

"Steel-kun, I'm ready!" Yui exclaimed from behind Steel as she now with a more full health bar, began charging at the Wolfmen. Soon after, the attack from the monsters had ended and Steel moved his sword into a sideways position before firing at the Wolfmen allowing Yui to get close to them without being attacked. When she got into range, she unleashed the 8 hit sword skill «Razor Cyclone» and began to spin 360 degrees around the Wolfmen slashing with her sword in motions similar to «Vertical Arc» getting rid of the monster's remaining HP. Once the system recognized that the battle was over with the last of the monsters destroyed, it began distributing experience points and drop items to the four of them.

"Now that that's over, want to go to a tavern and get a drink?" Steel said acting as if the battle wasn't that big of a deal.

"Sure!" Yui said with a smile. "By the way Steel-kun, what was that you threw at them?" she asked curiously.

"I threw some grenades I had on me." Steel answered matter of factly.

"But it went so fast." Yui said in disbelief.

"Before I threw them, I went into the motion for «Single Shot» from my «Throwing Weapon Skill» and just let the system throw it for me." Steel said with a grin on his face. "You do realize it'll let me throw more than throwing knives right?"

"Yui-chan, who's he?" Kana said in confusion the adrenaline having left her body.

"Ah right, I haven't introduced myself." Steel said in response. "The name's Steel, I've been partnering up with Yui for a long time for hunting and boss raids." At this, Kana and Sanae grabbed Yui and pulled her a few feet away to Steel's confusion.

"Hey Yui-chan, is this the 'friend' you were talking about?" Kana whispered to her with a mischievous smile on her face.

"It's not like that!" Yui exclaimed in a whisper so Steel wouldn't be able to hear. Kana could only snicker at how Yui's face was becoming red.

"You do seem to care for him." Sanae whispered as she looked back at Steel who was currently checking how many bullets were left in his gun blade. "But it seems you are not dating him."

"Yui-chan, fight!" Kaya whispered enthusiastically making Yui even more embarrassed.

"What are you girls talking about over there?" Steel asked having waited for a while and was curious as to why they needed to be a distance away from him.

"Nothing!" The three girls replied nervously, Yui being the most nervous. Deciding to drop it, Steel's face then became serious.

"Hey Yui, remember what I mentioned to you yesterday?" Steel asked as he sheathed his gun blade. **(Yes, that's what I'm calling it from now on)**

"Yes, you mentioned something about being cautious about anything attacking me." Yui replied. "What about it?"

"Yesterday's boss and the monsters we just fought confirm my suspicions." Steel said. "I believe you're being targeted."

**Well, I think that's a good place to end for this first chapter, what did you think of it? Please review and let me know. Considering that I'm planning for all of the chapters to be this long and I have other fanfics to write, don't expect me to update the next week or two after making a chapter. Speaking of that, I just thought of how to connect this to the game that started it all, Sword Art Online just like all of the other story arcs have done in some way. That's why, starting next chapter, the story won't just take place in Soul Art Online, but also in Sword Art Online during flashbacks. I wanted to put Kirito in this story with his awesome Dual Blades skill. Anyway, bye for now!**


	2. The Past and an Annoying Person

**Hello all, I'm back with chapter 2 of Sword Art Online: Generations. Hopefully you liked the last chapter although I doubt many people actually saw it when I posted it due to the Fanfiction system taking a longer time to put new stories into the circulation of fanfics. I don't blame the people in charge of this site for that but I am curious as to why it's like that. Oh well. Anyway, a good chunk of this chapter will take place in the floating castle Aincrad and Kirito will get his turn in the fighting spotlight against a player who fights in a unique way like him. You know, I actually had to do research on the timeline of the Sword Art Online series so I could get the timing right for events and make sure it still fits into the chronology. For example, I actually had to make sure Kirito had his Dual Blades skill at the time I was setting this part in so he could use it. Not just that, but I had to figure out some other things which will be revealed at a later time. It was a pain but I think it was worth it. Moving on, I hope you enjoy this chapter and this fanfic in general. I thank you people who have reviewed my story.**

**Next on the agenda, I would like to apologize for not posting in like 5 months. I've had a lot to do and I had a bit of a writer's block for a bit. Okay, more like a long time. But now I'm back and I hope to update more frequently. Remember though, I have three other ongoing fanfics so don't expect too much. (Note: this part of the author's note was written today and the first part was written when I started this chapter 5 months ago)**

**Also, ****I know there are some of you out there who just get a fanficiton account to review stories or do other things except writing stories. Try writing something! I personally think it's a waste to not write them. Also, it's fun! If you got a story idea in your head, write it! If you need any sort of assistance to write one, I'll be more than happy to help. **

**One more thing, has anybody read or watched Toriko? First off, it's a great series that I highly recommend and I bet shounen fans would definitely like it if they're not already watching and/or reading it. To those who don't know, Toriko takes place in a world where food is basically the center of everything. The only problem is, the more delicious the ingredient (creature, plant, etc), the more difficult it is to capture. There's actually an organization that ranks the many ingredients by level. Level 2 ingredients already require 6-8 armed men. Makes you wonder how hard it must be to get the ingredients over level 5,000 huh? That's where extremely strong people called Bishokuya, who specialize in capturing these ingredients come into the story. So basically, it's full of ingredients, Bishokuya, and chefs that all come together to make an awesome series. Oops, it looks like I began to go overboard a little there and I almost forgot what I was supposed to do here. Sorry! You see, me and my friends have started a fanon wiki for this awesome series a little over 2-3 weeks ago. We've been making our own unique ingredients and characters on there and it's actually been pretty fun to do. Unfortunately, there aren't many people on there and the founder of this fanon wiki who is also my friend asked me to advertise it on here to try to get some new people to join in on the fun. Personally, I think bringing in some new faces and opinions will liven the place up so do me a favor and at least check the site out. Hopefully, you'll join us. Who knows? Maybe you'll see me on the wiki's chat room sometime. Don't worry, I have the same username there as here. When you search it up, search up Toriko Fanfiction Wiki, not Toriko Fanon Wiki. Some group already took that name so we had to settle with that. Remember, Toriko Fanfiction Wiki, not Toriko Fanon wiki. Don't be afraid, we won't bite! Although I can't guarantee that for the food. HaHaHa!**

**I'm also on the Fairy Tail Fanon wiki for those who enjoy Fairy Tail.**

**Now that that's all done, enjoy the story! **

**I don't own Sword Art Online, Reki Kashiwara does. I only own my OCs and this fanfic's plotline.**

"Yesterday's boss and the monsters we just fought confirm my suspicions." Steel said. "I believe you're being targeted."

"What makes you think that?" Yui asked becoming slightly worried.

"Remember how yesterday's boss went after our raid leader instead of the tanks who fired at it?" Steel responded. "Once you took command it went after you."

"Then it was just following its program however unusual." Yui replied becoming uneasy from the serious expression on her friend's face that she was not used to.

"If that were the case, it should have also gone for Klein or Agil who took command after your body froze up during the cool down period of your sword skills." Steel said keeping his serious expression. "Also, it changed abilities when it was coming for you, as if it was programmed to get at you once you were targeted. At the moment, I haven't been able to think of any specific reason as to why they'd target you but I'm getting really suspicious about it. Until we can figure out what's going on, always be on your guard." Yui could only nod nervously as she was actually beginning to be scared at the way Steel was acting completely different from his carefree self. The boy in question soon picked up on that and hurriedly changed his facial disposition. "Sorry about that, didn't mean to scare you there. I just got really worried when I came to that realization." He said apologetically.

"It's fine, I'm actually happy that you were worried for me." Yui said shyly, red tinting her face.

"Of course, what are friends for?" Steel said with a grin apparently having not noticed Yui's blush. _He's an idiot. _Kana and Raven thought to themselves towards Steel's denseness about Yui's feelings for him. "Anyway, I know that alarm of yours will be ringing sometime soon so let's get back into town so we can log out."

"Right." Yui said still somewhat flustered as the group headed back into town.

_Later…_

The Kirigaya family was sitting around the table currently eating their dinner while chatting about the day's events. To not worry her parents, Yui had decided against telling them what Steel had told her and her friends earlier. "So, Yui-chan, how are things going with Steel-san?" Asuna asked at one point. At this, Yui went red in the face as she began to panic a little.

"Mama, why are you talking about that now!?" Yui exclaimed embarrassed. Kazuto seemed surprised by the name.

"Steel?" Kazuto said with a curious look on his face.

"Eh, Kazuto-kun, are you going to get overprotective over our daughter?" Asuna said with a teasing smirk on her face.

"Actually, it's because I remember a player with the exact same username back when we were trapped in Sword Art Online." Kirito replied. "He was definitely an abnormal player. He didn't have a unique skill but he certainly fought in a strange way."

"How so?" Asuna asked as both she and Yui were becoming interested.

"I might as well start in the beginning." Kazuto said as he tried to recall the event.

Aincrad, August 2024… **(Note: this will be in Kirito's perspective.)**

It was the day before we launched the crusade against Laughing Coffin. At one point, I went off on my own to practice my «Dual Blades» skill somewhere where I couldn't be found. I can't remember how long I was there slashing at monsters with my Elucidator and Dark Repulser but somehow, somebody had watched me use my «Dual Blades» skill without my knowing. "What the heck was that skill?" The person asked me with a surprised look on his face not that I blame him seeing that my «Dual Blades» was a «Unique Skill». I didn't really feel comfortable revealing the information because I simply didn't like the attention it would draw. However, there was no way I could hide it from a person who has seen me use it.

"...It's an extra skill «Dual Blades»." I replied as the person in front of me lit up in excitement.

"I knew there was going to be this kind of skill in this game! How did you get that skill?" The person said. "I'm Steel by the way." I was actually surprised at the way he changed from being excited to calm almost immediately when he introduced himself.

"I'm Kirito." I answered with a somewhat nervous smile. The way he acted enthusiastic about everything made me feel a bit uncomfortable. "As for how to get this skill, I don't know how I got it, it just appeared in my skill window one day all of a sudden."

"Aw man, it would've been cool to wield two swords." Steel said with a slight pout. "Ah well, no point in getting pissed off because of it. Anyway, do you want to have a duel? I want to see what I can do against a dual blade wielder. Also, it sounds fun!" I was taken aback at this person who had challenged me to a duel for fun in a world where if your life points go to zero, you'll die. The strangest part was that he was truly enjoying the prospect of going head to head with me ignoring the possibility of a large difference in our levels and indirectly ignoring the possibility of death. "I know of a safe zone nearby here that looks like the ruins of a theater or something. I figure you don't want anyone else to know about that skill so let me assure you, almost nobody goes there due to the fact there's nothing important nearby it. So, what do you say?"

"Um, sure." I replied as I felt somewhat pressured to accept his challenge due to his exuberance. Soon after, we made it to the safe zone Steel had mentioned which indeed looked like a large circular stage. Steel then called the menu screen with his right hand and manipulated it quickly. Soon a semi-transparent system message appeared in front of me. I could guess what it was before I even read it.

[A 1-on-1 duel has been requested by Steel. Do you accept?]

I pressed Yes and chose the «First Strike Mode» from the options. This was a duel that could be won either by landing the first clean hit or by reducing the opponent's HP to half. The message changed to [You have accepted the 1-on-1 duel with Steel], and a countdown of 60 seconds appeared below it. The moment that number reached zero, the HP protection system that was in effect within towns and safe zones would be momentarily withdrawn, and he and I would be able to cross swords until one of us won.

"You ready?" Steel said with a grin as I nodded in response. He drew a dark gray long sword from his back. Its length was about the same as my Elucidator which I drew out along with my Dark Repulser. We stood about five meters apart, waiting for the countdown to reach zero. I began to focus in order to read the atmosphere around my opponent and examined his stance and the way his feet moved. Humans were far more liable to show certain habits when they were about to use a skill. Whether it was a charging or defending skill, or if it would start low from the ground or from high up, if their body revealed this kind of information, then it became a critical weakness. Steel's stance was similar to mine when I use one sword probably because we both used a one handed long sword without a shield except for his hand being closer to his hip. At this point, the only thing I could tell was that he like me would try to use speed to end this duel quickly.

The word [DUEL!] appeared in the space between us, and we immediately charged at each other. As he charged at me, Steel raised his sword to shoulder height and charged up for a sword skill which I presumed to be «Vertical Square». I decided to counter with the sword skill «Double Circular», a 2 hit Dual Blades skill which I began charging up. I was planning on knocking his posture into disarray by deflecting the first strike thus canceling the skill before using the second attack to strike his midsection. With the stamp of his foot, he swung his sword in a vertical motion which confirmed my suspicions of him using the skill. In response, I released my sword skill with a flash of scarlet light and as expected, I heard the sound of impact from two blades. However to my surprise, my second attack struck nothing but air, it was like he disappeared. The next thing I knew, Steel was right next to me ready to strike with a «Martial Arts» attack. At the last moment, I spun the sword in my right hand like a windmill at high speed with «Spinning Shield» to block the incoming attack just in time.

"As expected of the Black Swordsman." Steel said with excitement as he jumped back and caught his sword which had been launched into the air from the sword clash.

"You're not too bad yourself." I said in response. "I honestly didn't expect that trick you pulled there. Looks like I'm not the only one who tests the system." Instead of the «Vertical Square» that I expected, Steel instead used his «Throwing Weapon» skill, more specifically the throwing axe attack. Unlike most «Sword Skills» which required the use of a specific type of weapon, you can basically use the «Throwing Weapon» skill with anything as long as you have the proper strength requisite and get into the proper motion. Using this to his advantage, Steel faked the starting position of «Vertical Square» and instead was ready to throw his sword like an axe so he wouldn't have to go through set motions he would have done if he actually activated it. During the brief moment all of my focus was on his blade, he then ran into my blind spot so he could strike. If it wasn't for my reflexes, the duel would have ended there.

"Well, we're not done yet!" Steel said as he took out a throwing dagger and began charging at me. He raised the dagger to the «Single Shot» position and I could see that he was trying to lower his sword without my knowledge. I already figured out what he was planning, he was going to throw his dagger at me and then transition to the one handed sword skill «Rage Spike» to strike the exact same moment I would focus on the dagger. As he launched his dagger at me, I decided to side step it and dodge while charging up for the one handed sword skill «Vorpal Strike» which was superior in both power and range than the move he decided to use. It seemed that Steel caught on and changed tactics mid charge. Instead of using «Rage Spike», he used a different sword skill to go up against mine. When we clashed, I felt my body grow heavier as if my equipment all of sudden became 10 times their original weight. That's when I realized that he used a sword skill that wasn't commonly used. «Serration Wave», a one hit skill for the one handed sword. The reason why it wasn't used very often is because it did little if any damage and it had a short range. However, it did have the special ability to greatly lower an opponent's mobility which is probably why he chose it.

As I saw him break away and ready another sword skill which I knew for sure it was «Vertical Square», I knew this battle would end in this last clash as I somehow got my body into the position for the Duel Blades skill «Starburst Stream», a 16 hit attack. We both seemed to have a silent agreement that we would both strike with our hardest at the same time. With a shout, we kicked off the ground and activated our Sword Skills. His first vertical slash met my horizontal slash with my right sword, his upward vertical slash met my downward one with my left sword for the second hit. The process repeated itself and I struck horizontally with my right sword once more which was blocked by him with a normal parry, using it to back up a little before throwing two daggers which were deflected by my spinning slashes. Steel used the time he bought from throwing those two daggers to charge up for a Sword Skill. As I began to slash downward in an X-like shape he released the sword skill «Howling Octave». My downward slash as well as my upward slash was met by thrusts from his sword. It was the same result when I reversed my grip on my swords and did another set of X shaped slashes. The stage we were fighting on was soon filled with the sounds of metal clashing along with the blue and orange light effects that seemed to be clashing as well. We were both nearing the end of our combo attacks and I thrust my sword with all my strength as he countered with a strong upward slash. At this point, it was clear who the victor was. Steel had just finished the last hit of his combo while I still had one more attack left. With all of my remaining strength, I thrust my other sword at his right shoulder blade and with that, the duel was over.

_End of flashback…_

"I'm surprised there was somebody besides the commander (Heathcliff) who could keep up with your Duel Blades back then Kazuto-kun." Asuna said with some surprise in her voice.

"What makes it more amazing is that he didn't know about any of the attacks for the dual blades skill." Kazuto said. "Yet he was still able to respond and act accordingly for the most part." While the subject of the conversation between Kazuto and Asuna went to the topic of the days back in Sword Art Online, Yui was wondering in her thoughts whether the Steel her father was talking about was the same person as her in game friend. _The way Papa described him makes him sound about the same as the Steel-kun I know. But if that's true, he'd have to be at least 25 or 26! _Yui thought rather alarmed to think that her crush could be 10 years older than her physical age. _I'll ask him myself tonight. _She hoped Steel wasn't 10 years older than her but she would still check.

_Later on in the game…_

Yui was using the friend locator function to find Steel's location so she could talk to him. He was apparently at the place he and Yui usually met up. After a short run using her high sprint skill, she had arrived to the clearing. When she took a look to see what Steel was doing, she noticed that he was panting as if he was out of breath and also was wearing a set of black armor that Yui has never seen him wear yet. "One more time." Yui heard him say before he got into a type of stance facing a training dummy that could be bought in town 40 meters away. Curious, Yui decided to stay silent and watch to see what her friend was doing. Steel began to concentrate and his gun blade as well as his armor began to glow showing the charge up of a sword skill. _Was there ever a skill that had something to do with armor? _Yui thought perplexed at the sight of the armor also being part of whatever Steel was doing. It was then Steel released the built up energy in a large burst and all of a sudden, he disappeared from sight, shocking Yui as she heard the sound of a crash in the trees several meters behind the target training dummy.

"Steel-kun are you okay!?" Yui exclaimed not able to stay silent anymore at the sight of her friend on the ground and possibly in pain.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Steel replied with sheepish grin as he got into a sitting position. "Anyway, what are you doing here at this time? You don't usually log on at night."

"I had some free time tonight so I decided to log on for a bit." Yui replied not wanting to make things awkward by immediately asking Steel about his age. "What were you doing just then?" She asked out of pure curiosity.

"Well, it was supposed to be a secret until I perfected it but I might as well show you since you already saw it." Steel said as he got up from the ground. After walking about 40 meters, he turned around and faced Yui while getting into a battle stance. "Don't hold back now." Yui figured out what he meant, he wanted her to strike at him in order to show her whatever it was he wanted to show so she got into a battle stance and drew her long sword. After a brief tense moment, the two of them charged at each other as they charged up their skills. Like her father, Yui picked up on the ability to act accordingly after observing her opponent and she focused on how Steel would attack. With a grin, Steel raised his gun blade to his side which was immediately noticed by Yui but once her gaze went back to where Steel was, he was gone. _What just happened? He disappeared! _Yui thought both surprised and in shock before she felt Steel's blade pointed at her from behind. "Well, I guess you got gist of it from seeing that… sort of." Steel said with a slight joking tone as he sheathed his weapon.

"How did you do that?" Yui asked in disbelief.

"Well, you know how the human eye can only track vertical and horizontal movements? What I do is that I use my sword to redirect my opponent's attention before ducking diagonally into my opponent's blind spot." Steel answered.

"Then how were you able to move that fast?" Yui asked in confusion. "Even if you used your sprint skill, you wouldn't be able to go the speed you did."

"I used this equipment." Steel answered pointing to his new armor. "Remember how I've been raising my «Mechanic» skill level? Last month, I gained the ability to be able to craft aircraft parts. After some experimentation, I decided to use this to create armor with propulsion equipment. I figured if got the timing right, I could do a whole lot of impact damage with the high speed. The amount of speed I just used was only half the maximum speed, which is the fastest I can go without losing control."

"Amazing, so you've been practicing to use that recently?" Yui said in awe. "Where'd you get the idea for it?"

"My dad." Steel answered matter of factly. "And he figured out those ways to fight during the Sword Art Online incident when he got trapped in there. I was only 2-3 years old when that happened so I can't remember much. That's how I got my username, I based it off of him." He said this with a smile of remembrance. "What about you? Were any of your parents trapped inside Sword Art Online?"

"Both of my parents were." Yui answered. _Looks like the Steel Papa mentioned was Steel-kun's father, I'm relieved that Steel-kun is actually around my age. _She thought to herself afterwards with a happy expression.

"What are you so happy about?" Steel asked curiously seeing Yui's expression. In embarrassment, Yui quickly began panicking while trying to think of an excuse.

"I-It's nothing!" Yui managed to stammer out. Luckily for her, Steel seemed to believe it and decided to switch topics leading to more conversations that lasted until they both had to log out for the night.

_That night…_

Kazuto was unable to sleep that night as he was thinking back to that time that he talked about at dinner time. Although it was meant to be an interesting story to tell, Kazuto couldn't help but think back to the events after that duel.

_Back to the flashback…. _(Again in Kirito's perspective)

"Looks like I lost." Steel said a disappointed sigh. However, he didn't stay like that for too long as his face brightened up once more. "But still, it was really fun and exciting! Even now, I can feel the exhilaration from that battle!"

"Same here." I said as I gave him a potion to replenish the hit points he lost from the duel, I also drank one myself. To be honest, I really did enjoy myself being able to go all out against someone with my Duel Blades.

"With your strength, I'm guessing you're participating in tomorrow's crusade against Laughing Coffin right?" Steel asked with a somewhat sad tone to his voice. "I'm doing the same. To be honest, I don't want to fight in this crusade. I can already guess there'll be heavy casualties on both sides after this is all over. Won't that mean so many people will die tomorrow?" I didn't really know how to answer that as a complicated expression appeared on my face.

"It's not like we have much of a choice. If we don't take care of Laughing Coffin, more people will die because of them." I replied trying to at least help him come to terms with the idea.

"That's true." Steel said with his head down before almost immediately raising it again. He seemed to have an idea in his head. "I almost forgot! I got that item after completing that quest last week!" As he said this, he took out a small clear container that seemed to contain a dark green liquid inside.

"What is that?" I asked the person in front of me. From the color of the liquid, I was guessing that it was a poison of some sort.

"It's a really high level paralysis poison that I got from a quest." Steel replied confirming my assumption. "But because it's a quest on the current floor we're on, not many people know about it yet. If an enemy were to be hit by a weapon coated with this, they'd be unable to move for at least half an hour!" I was taken aback at the potency of the poison; it must have been a rare level 15 poison. If it weren't for the fact that we were talking about the important battle happening tomorrow, I would have asked about the quest he got such an item from.

"I see, if the person is paralyzed, then there's a less likely chance for them to be killed." I said figuring out why he wanted to use it. "If they were paralyzed, they'd most likely be sent to the prison instead." At this Steel nodded.

"Well, it's better than killing anyone right?" He said with a smile. I was again taken aback towards this person who would show compassion even to his enemy in this death game. "Anyway, since we have to form parties for this, let's team up and take these red players down!" He said with confidence as he reached out his hand for a handshake.

"I'll be counting on you then." I said with a small smile as I returned the handshake.

_End of flashback_ …

"Kazuto-kun, you're thinking back to that crusade against Laughing Coffin aren't you?" Asuna asked from next to Kazuto, shaking him from his thoughts.

"Yeah I was." Kazuto replied as he turned his body to face his wife. "It's not the easiest thing to forget since so many people died in that one battle. I personally killed two or three at least."

"Don't worry, it's all over now." Asuna assured him as she leaned over and covered Kazuto's body with her arm. Soon, the two fell asleep in each other's embrace.

_The next day…_

Currently, Yui was in a bit of a predicament. Earlier, her homeroom teacher had asked her to get a box from the storage room and it just so happened that the teacher had failed to mention that the said box was on a shelf just out of her reach. To her frustration, she also couldn't find anything to use as a footstool of sorts to reach the shelf. "Why did they put it all the way up there?" Yui said as she struggled to reach for the box on the high shelf. All of a sudden, a pair of hands grabbed the box and pulled it off the shelf. Turning around, Yui almost jumped back in fright after seeing who it was, her classmate Kurogane Takeshi. Up close, he seemed intimidating to Yui especially because of him being 7 inches (17.78 cm) taller than her.

"Looking for this?" Takeshi asked he brought it down. Yui nodded before taking the box from him which was heavier than she expected. "You should drink some more milk. You were too short to reach that shelf right?" He added afterward with a teasing tone empathizing on Yui's height which made her pout.

"I'm of average height, you're just too tall!" Yui exclaimed no longer intimidated by Takeshi and more annoyed at him. "So would you please stop saying that I'm short!?"

"Well, you're short to me." Takeshi replied not really caring as he started walking back towards the classroom. "Come on Shorty, class is going to start soon."

"I told you to stop saying that!" Yui exclaimed back.

"Moving on, you sure you can handle that box Kirigaya?" Takeshi asked. _I'm glad he stopped calling me short but he's not even using an honorific? _Yui thought in annoyance as they reached the flight of stairs that would take them to the second floor. "It sort of looks like you're struggling with it." As much as Yui hated to admit it, she did not have the strength stat of the SAO avatar «Yui» but she didn't want to ask for help from the person who teased her earlier.

**(Note: to those who don't know about honorifics, that's usually the 'san', 'kun', etc put after a person's name. Usually if you don't use honorifics with a person, it's supposed to mean the person has allowed you to. In this case, Yui has not allowed Takeshi to drop the honorifics and that's why she's annoyed.) **

"I can do this on my own thank you very much." Yui replied as she started walking up the stairs wobbling a little. After a few more steps, Yui lost her balance and fell backwards. _I knew this was going to happen. _Takeshi thought getting into the position to break her fall as she collided into him and they fell to the ground in a single heap.

"Don't say I didn't tell you so." Takeshi said with a sigh as he tried getting the girl off of him until he felt something soft. "What the..."

"K-Kyaaa—!" Yui screamed as she hurriedly got off of him. She then glared at Takeshi with an inexplicable anger evident in her eyes and her face was red all the way to her ears while her two arms were crossed protectively against her chest. _Oh crap. _Takeshi thought figuring out what had happened a bit too late. "Pervert!" Yui exclaimed before she slapped him with a force strong enough to leave a hand mark on his face.

_Later at lunch…_

"Yui-chan, is it true that Kurogane laid his hands on you!?" Kaya asked looking mad. "Just say the word and I'll pulverize him!" Apparently, Yui's scream was loud enough to be heard by those nearby and from the hand mark that was still on Takeshi's face, people started rumors thinking that he sexually assaulted Yui, causing his already bad reputation to get worse.

"He didn't do anything, it was an accident." Yui said in Takeshi's defense. While she didn't really like him and was rather annoyed by him, Yui didn't hate him enough to let Kaya, who made it to the nationals in Aikido last year, go 'straighten him out'.

"I don't want you to have murder on your record so it'd be best to let it be for now." Sanae said from the seat next to them reading a book.

"At the very least, I'm going to make sure he can't do anything to her anytime soon!" Kaya exclaimed in response.

"Well sorry for being such a jerk." Takeshi said in an annoyed tone as he walked into the classroom and at his entrance; Kaya began shooting a death glare at him.

"You better not lay a hand on Yui-chan you perv!" Kaya exclaimed angrily.

"I never tried to so would you get off my case about it?" Takeshi getting even more annoyed towards Kaya.

"Are you picking a fight or something? If so, I'll be happy to comply." Kaya said angrily getting into a fighting stance.

"I don't have time to deal with you." Takeshi said as he just brushed past the group, people scattering away from his path as he walked to his desk and sat down.

"That was scary; I really thought you two were going to go at it." Yui said once Kaya sat down. Soon after saying that, Yui's phone vibrated indicating that she got an email.

"Who's it from?" Sanae asked with a curious expression. The reason being that although Yui was friendly to everyone (Well, perhaps not Takeshi), the only people she actually talked to on a normal basis were Kaya and herself.

"Steel-kun." Yui replied as her face began to be tinted in red from the embarrassment.

"That guy from yesterday? I didn't know you two already exchanged e-mails." Kaya said with a slight teasing tone. "So what did he message you about?"

"He just said that he wouldn't be online today and that I should be careful." Yui replied somewhat timidly.

"Aw, he's all worried about you!" Kaya exclaimed excitedly. "It looks like you're making good progress with him!" As Yui whose face had turned completely red was trying to get Kaya to stop, the bell had rung forcing Yui's friends to go back to their own classrooms. _I have the feeling they're having fun with this. _Yui thought to herself with a sweat drop.

_After school…_

"It looks like I left the data file for the homework in the classroom." Yui said to herself as she was walking back to her classroom after her practice with the kendo club. Right before she was about to enter the room, she saw Takeshi inside and she instead hid behind the door as to her as she like most of the school, found Takeshi to be intimidating looking.

"Am I really that scary looking?" Takeshi said with a smirk on his face while he continued to sweep the classroom with a broom. Apparently, the intimidating looking person in question had noticed Yui and that she tried to hide. "It's no use hiding, I know you're there. You're probably here to grab something you forgot right? Then you saw me and decided to wait for me to be done with whatever I'm doing. Not that I really care or anything but that plan might take a while if you wait since I'm on cleaning duty today."

"Then hurry up!" Yui said beginning to be irritated with his attitude again. At this, Takeshi began to smirk again.

"Okaaay, I'llll gooo assss faaaast assss I caaaan." Takeshi replied dragging out his voice while intentionally slowing down by a considerable amount to mess with Yui which irritated her even further.

"Would you quit that!?" Yui exclaimed getting even more annoyed. "Take your job seriously!"

"I am taking it seriously Shorty." Takeshi replied with a smirk as he was beginning to enjoy poking fun at her.

"I told you to stop calling me that!" Yui exclaimed before storming off in annoyance, having completely forgotten what she had originally come to do. As she left, Takeshi noticed the before mentioned reason still sitting on Yui's desk.

"What a pain, I gotta go get this to her now, the study material for tomorrow's test is on there." Takeshi said to himself not being the complete jerk **(because he still acts like one sometimes)** everyone thought him to be before grabbing it and leaving the classroom as well.

_Outside…_

"Why did that jerk have to transfer into my school?" Yui said to herself with a sigh as she walked past the school gates and was headed towards home. Unbeknownst to her, there were people waiting for her to pass by who then began surrounding her.

"Sorry, you're going to have to come with us." One of them said with an evil grin on his face. "Tell the boss we got her." The man said to one of his subordinates who proceeded to do what he was told.

"I won't be taken without a fight." Yui said with a serious tone in her voice as she drew her shinai (a bamboo kendo sword by the way). After analyzing her opponents, she concluded that she can at least stall for time enough that someone will come by, hopefully the patrolman.

"The boss didn't want you to get damaged but I guess he'll overlook a few bruises if we get her back in one piece." The man said as he raised the bokken he was holding and got into a stance. _He's so open in that stance, if I can land a strike powerful enough to stun him, I think I can get away in midst of the shock and confusion._ Yui thought to herself in an analytical way, something that came from her time as an AI. Right when she was about to charge at her opponent, the said opponent had already closed the distance between and swung his bokken at her which Yui defended against. However, that was a feint and the man was really aiming for a punch to the stomach which hit Yui square on. _How did he move so fast? According to my analysis, I should have had enough time to predict his attack. _Yui thought to herself while she held her stomach in pain and dropped her shinai. "It looks like the boss's experiment worked." The man said with an approving smile. "I've had my fun and games but the boss is really looking forward to seeing you and it's not nice to keep him waiting." As he said this, he readied another swing to knock Yui out thus making it easier for transporting her. Time seemed to slow down for Yui who could only think of the one thought that she always would think of when she's in a pinch although she knew it wasn't possible for it to happen this time.

_Save me Steel-kun! _Yui thought to herself remembering all the times her partner had saved her from bad situations and say "What would you do without me?" with a grin like he usually would. However, Steel wouldn't know anything about where Yui is in the real world so he couldn't protect her this time.

_WHAM!_

The sound of impact could be heard before the sound of a person falling to the ground was heard. To Yui's surprise, the man who was about to knock her out was now knocked out himself. Takeshi who was holding the shinai Yui dropped was standing between Yui and the man's subordinates with a serious expression on his face. "Kurogane-san?" Yui said with a tearful yet surprised expression. She wasn't expecting him of all people to come.

"Did you guys just hit puberty or something? Cause that's real immature ganging up on a girl like that." Takeshi said directing it towards the remaining assailants. "If you want a fight, then I got an opponent right here for you. Bring it on!"

**And that's the end of chapter two! Sorry to leave it at a cliffhanger but that's the best way I could think of to end the chapter. I hope you enjoy reading this fanfic as much as I enjoy writing it. Also, I would like to know of your opinions of how the story is going so far, how I am doing with characters, etc. Please leave a review! Constructive criticism will be welcomed as I want to further improve my writing skill so I can further your enjoyment as the readers. So basically, help me help you have a more enjoyable time reading this fanfic. Also, why don't you check out my other fanfics if want. In any case, I hope you will enjoy my future/current work and I bid you good reading. Until next time!**

Yours truly, Forest Dragon Slayer


	3. Two Swords

**Hello everyone in Fanfiction world! Forest Dragon Slayer here with the next chapter of Sword Art Online: Generations. It seems that in eyes of you readers, this story is going well and I thank those who reviewed, one of the reviews I got an idea from to make this story more interesting. Well, actually it's a combination of two ideas I had put together along with some other stuff. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as or more than the last two chapters. Note it'll start with an excerpt from the last chapter.**

**By the way, I've been thinking of making a fanfic crossover between this story and another story of mine called 'The Forest Joins the Sky', which is a Fairy Tail fanfic. You see, I based the fanfic's main character Eugene's appearance off of Kirito so I got an idea from that. My idea was that through an incident that had something to with both technology failure and magic would lead to Eugene and Kirito meeting in some in-between dimension. Because they think the person in front of them is some fake that appears to look like them, the two will have an epic showdown! A battle between a Swordsman and a Dragon Slayer! Of course, it'd be boring if I just did that since they already had something like that in the Sword Art Online/Accel World crossover 'Versus'. (Which by the way, is a good read) After the battle, I plan for Kirito and Eugene to accidentally switch places and they go to the other person's world instead of their own. If I actually go through with this, I'll be posting the crossover on both fanfics. However on here, it will show Kirito's point of view of both the battle and being in the Fairy Tail universe. In 'The Forest Joins the Sky', it will have the third person version of the battle and it will only show Eugene being in Kazuto's world. So in order to see the whole thing, you'll have to read both fanfics! Yeah, this is just a way for me to get people who read this fanfic to read the other fanfic. Hahaha.**

**One more thing, as I said last chapter, me and my friends have started a fanon wiki for the series Toriko which is basically a fighting series with food involved. We've been making our own unique ingredients and characters on there and it's actually been pretty fun to do. Unfortunately, there aren't many people on there and the founder of this fanon wiki who is also my friend asked me to advertise it on here to try to get some new people to join in on the fun. Personally, I think bringing in some new faces and opinions will liven the place up so do me a favor and at least check the site out. Hopefully, you'll join us. Who knows? Maybe you'll see me on the wiki's chat room sometime. Don't worry, I have the same username there as here. When you search it up, search up Toriko Fanfiction Wiki, not Toriko Fanon Wiki. Some group already took that name so we had to settle with that. Remember, Toriko Fanfiction Wiki, not Toriko Fanon wiki. Don't be afraid, we won't bite! Although I can't guarantee that for the food. HaHaHa!**

**Anyway, let's get to the chapter! Please read, enjoy and review!**

**I don't own Sword Art Online, Reki Kashiwara does. **

_WHAM!_

_The sound of impact could be heard before the sound of a person falling to the ground was heard. To Yui's surprise, the man who was about to knock her out was now knocked out himself. Takeshi who was holding the shinai Yui dropped was standing between Yui and the man's subordinates with a serious expression on his face. "Kurogane-san?" Yui said with a tearful yet surprised expression. She wasn't expecting him of all people to come._

"_Did you guys just hit puberty or something? Cause that's real immature ganging up on a girl like that." Takeshi said directing it towards the remaining assailants. "If you want a fight, then I got an opponent right here for you. Bring it on!"_

"Think you're a real hero huh brat?" One of the men said as got into a position and with movement faster than the eye could see, the man swung his bokken at Takeshi at rapid speed. In response, Takeshi jumped back to dodge the attack before thrusting the borrowed shinai into the foe's stomach with great force causing the man to keel over in pain. _That movement… _Yui thought to herself in surprise. _It's not as fast, but it's the exact same as the motions for _«_Vorpal Strike_»_! _Three more of the men charged at him from different angles and directions at high speed, one attacking in a horizontal slash, another with a vertical slash, and the third with a diagonal slash. In response, Takeshi got into an Iai stance, a Japanese sword drawing stance with the shinai at his hip. With a shout, he drew and slashed at all three of them in an omnidirectional slash, aiming for their most vulnerable spots. After those three fell, there was now one more remaining foe that bent his hips back slightly and got into a low dash position. The man sped towards Takeshi at full speed with his body almost touching the ground and tilted his bokken in an upward stabbing position. _I don't think I could try __that__ with a shinai so it looks like I'll have to improvise. _Takeshi thought to himself before switching the hand holding the shinai to his left and stiffening his right arm. He then swung his arm at the bokken from left to right and then immediately went from right to left. These two consecutive hits resembled beasts gnawing as they accurately hit the same point, breaking the wooden sword. Takeshi immediately raised the shinai in his left hand afterwards before swinging it down with full force, hitting his opponent in the area between the shoulder and the neck, knocking him out cold.

"Well that's over." Takeshi said while keeping his usual expression although he was panting a little. "You okay Kirigaya? You look like you've seen a ghost." He said to the girl still on the ground from the powerful blow to her stomach earlier.

"I'm fine, I'm just a little shocked is all." Yui replied. "What about you? Your right hand is bleeding." At this, Takeshi looked and saw that his hand was indeed bleeding due to him using his own arm as a weapon.

"This is nothing." Takeshi said shaking it off. "All I gotta do is wash it then bandage it up. You should be more worried about yourself, seeing that you took a more powerful blow to the stomach. Can you even stand?"

"I can." Yui replied as she tried to get up with great difficulty before going back down onto her knees in pain, her arms holding her stomach again.

"It seems like you got a bruise there or something. Eh, it can't be helped." Takeshi said before turning his back to Yui and squatted down. "Get on." Although embarrassed, Yui climbed onto Takeshi's back. When he was sure Yui was secured, Takeshi stood up. "Man, you're heavy."

"That's a rude thing to say to a girl!" Yui exclaimed in annoyance towards Takeshi's comment.

"At the very least you still have the energy react." Takeshi said with a smirk. At this, Yui couldn't help but feel that something like this situation happened before in the past as a past memory of hers, presumably from her first few days in the real world, flashed by in her mind. "The way those guys were fighting was really weird." Takeshi said to himself shaking Yui out of her thoughts.

"What do you mean by that?" Yui asked in curiosity. She thought it was peculiar as well and she wanted another person's opinion on the situation.

"Their movements were way too controlled to be natural. It's like they were using «Sword Skills»." Takeshi replied. "Their leader hit you with something that looked like the Martial Arts Skill «Embracer», the three that came at me at once used «Vertical», «Horizontal», and «Slant», and the last guy used «Rage Spike». Yui was surprised that Takeshi knew about sword skills and that he may possibly be a player of SAO.

"Kurogane-san, do you happen to play SAO? Earlier, those movements of yours were a lot like the sword skills from the game as well. That first attack was the one handed sword skill «Vorpal Strike», that omnidirectional attack was the katana sword skill «Tsujikaze». As for the last attack, it looked familiar but I couldn't tell what it was. I can't recall of a Martial Arts skill that went like that.

"That was an improvised version of the one handed sword skill «Snake Bite». Your shinai wouldn't be able to break a weapon so I used my hand to do that." Takeshi replied. "Wow, I wouldn't expect one of the top ranking students in school to be so knowledgeable about a fighting based VRMMO like that."

"I also happen to be a regular player too." Yui said before going back to the prior topic. "In a sense, you did the same thing as them, using sword skill based movements."

"I'm not so sure." Takeshi replied. "You should have realized it by now, but their movements should be impossible for a human, it was way too fast."

"From my analysis, that amount of speed is still within their bodies' limits." Yui replied somewhat confused because of how Takeshi said it was impossible.

"Perhaps within the body's limits but what about the mental ones?" Takeshi asked. "No matter how strong a person is, it is almost impossible for that person to use 100% power due to mental limitations which are there to prevent too much strain to the body. Most likely, that amount of speed and power is their real 100%. The next question is how they were able to bypass that mental limit and also, why does that only happen when they get into a stance for a sword skill? The attack itself also seems to be strangely automatic like a sword skill too." Yui then remembered what the leader of the earlier thugs said. 

"_It looks like the boss's experiment worked."_

"I remember that they were talking about an experiment that I assume affected them in some way." Yui said. "After thinking about what you said, I hypothesize that the experiment altered the nervous system of those men."

"That's possible however difficult to do." Takeshi said afterwards. "To save on the time trying to figure out how it works, let's move on to the next issue. Why were they after you specifically? Has this happened before?"

"It happened twice before this but in the virtual world." Yui answered. "In both cases, the mobs were fighting in extremely irregular fighting patterns."

"So the person or group after you is skilled with neuro-science as well as hacking and programming." Takeshi concluded after hearing the information. "This'll be a huge pain in the butt to resolve. Have a place you want to meet up at?"

"Wait, what?" Yui said not liking where this was going.

"It'll be troublesome if I have to play the knight in shining armor all the time so it'd be best if we can resolve the issue soon." Takeshi said in response. "I'll meet up with you in SAO later."

_Later…_

"I can't believe I have to deal with him here too." Yui said to herself as her virtual avatar «Yui» in the area she usually met up with Steel.

"Geez, it's not like I want to deal with a shorty like you either." A male with black hair said as he was walking over in Yui's direction. Although he had some armor, this person didn't have any weapons equipped.

"Kurogane-san?" Yui asked recognizing the rude tone of voice towards her.

"Yeah, it's me. On here, I'm called Tetsu though." Takeshi replied as his virtual avatar «Tetsu». "And I see somebody was stupid enough to use their own name for their avatar." He added which ticked Yui off. **(Note: Takeshi will be referred to as Tetsu while they're in the virtual world.)**

"Well, at least I'm not stupid enough to walk around bare handed!" Yui exclaimed back.

"Shut it will ya? It's how I fight." Tetsu replied in annoyance.

"How are you going to fight like that!?" Yui exclaimed also getting annoyed by Tetsu's attitude just like in the real world. The two began arguing with each other, completely not paying attention to their surroundings. It wasn't until they heard a noise from nearby them that they stopped their bickering and became cautious of their surroundings. At this, Yui drew her swords and Tetsu cracked his neck in anticipation. With a loud roar, a large creature that looked like a rat came into view. The size of this creature was about five times the size of the two players and it didn't look too friendly with that large yet crude sword at its waist.

"Must be one of those low level field bosses that respawn every few days." Tetsu said. "Know how to beat it?"

"The head is the weak spot so if one of us can get up there, it shouldn't be too hard to defeat it." Yui replied.

"Sounds easy enough." Tetsu said with a grin before the two of them charged at the creature. Tetsu decided to run slightly faster before jumping forward into a handstand. Yui figured out what he was doing the second he did it and she jumped onto Tetsu's feet before being launched into the air. As Yui was about to activate the one handed sword skill «Sonic Leap», she noticed she was launched too high and too far.

"You used too much strength!" Yui exclaimed as she sailed through the air.

"Sorry about that! I'll set this rodent up for you!" Tetsu exclaimed before pulling back his arm and began chanting a spell as fast as he could. "Chirelo Kasana Rayelf!" Upon completing the spell, a red aura covered his body before he threw a punch at the enemy rodent which to Yui's surprise, had enough power to send the giant rat several feet backwards. Seeing that she was now on course for the said giant rat, Yui readied a sword skill once more while at the same time, Tetsu jumped at the same creature with great force and speed. The two hit the giant rat at the same time, Yui hitting in the head and Tetsu hitting the gut. The force of the blow sent the rat flying into trees causing to take more and more damage before it finally shattered into polygons. "You were right, it was really easy." Tetsu said once the rat's virtual remains were gone.

"By the way, how were able to punch a field boss that far with just a punch?" Yui asked in curiosity.

"That's because of these gauntlets I got from a quest I did a while back." Tetsu replied as he was pointing to the gauntlets on his forearms. "They're called «Titan's Gauntlets», when they're equipped, they double the user's strength stat. It's also due to a spell I used earlier which doubles my strength stat for 30 seconds. That means my strength for those 30 seconds would be four times my actual statistics. I focused on raising my strength and agility stats, focusing slightly more on strength, so my strength stat is already higher than the average player." _He's like Steel-kun in this aspect, they both use some weird way to fight._ Yui thought to herself._ Steel-kun uses a Gun Blade which is unpopular due to it being heavy and hard to control from the gun part of the weapon and Kurogane-san uses his fists which is almost unheard of in a game filled with close range weapons, guns, and magic. _Another loud noise shook Yui out of her thoughts as the two of them heard the sound of more creatures coming towards them.

"I almost forgot that there were «Rat Minions» when this boss is around since we defeated it so fast." Yui said getting ready to fight again. The sound of the Rat Minions which were human sized increased in volume as the group of mobs got closer. Pretty soon, they were in view, looking like they wanted to bite the heads of Yui and Tetsu off their bodies which was understandable considering their leader was just destroyed by the two.

"It looks like we really pissed them off huh?" Tetsu asked with a grin on his face. "That's good, it was boring just facing that one giant one."

"Is that really supposed to be a good thing?" Yui commentated with a sweat drop towards Tetsu's enthusiasm for battle.

"Hey Shorty, what are the stats for these supposed to be?" Tetsu asked ignoring the comment.

"They're supposed to be around level 30 or so." Yui replied. "And stop calling me that!" She added in annoyance to the insult which has become common from him.

"Any debuffs these rodents can dish out?" Tetsu asked ignoring the last part of what Yui said. With a sigh, Yui decided to deal with it later.

"If you get into physical contact with them, there's a 46.9% chance of getting the «Plague» debuff which weakens your body and gradually gets rid of your health bar." Yui answered with a precision that surprised Tetsu.

"So in other words, we can't use Martial Arts skills or let them touch us even once or risk getting this annoying debuff right?" Tetsu asked with a tinge of annoyance in his voice knowing he wouldn't be able to fight the way he wanted.

"That's correct." Yui said in response. "Do you have any weapons you can use? Because you're not going to be able to use your fists in this situation."

"What a pain, but it looks like I have no choice." Tetsu said as he opened his menu and materialized a weapon from his inventory. After a bit, a spear appeared in his right hand. "First off, I think I'll thin out these pests." He said as he raised his spear above at head level as it began to glow a blue color. _Is he going to throw that!? _Yui exclaimed in her mind after seeing his position.

"Wha-" Yui began to ask but she was interrupted by the sight of Tetsu with the use of the Throwing Weapon skill, throwing his spear which flew through the air at high speed before impaling 3 «Rat Minions» and landed in the trunk of a tree. _Yet another person who likes to throw weapons with the Throwing Weapon skill. _Yui thought to herself remembering how Steel did the same thing with a grenade yesterday.

"Rat Shish Kebab anyone?" Tetsu said with a slight joking tone in his voice as the three mobs that were impaled shattered into fragments of data. With the «Rat Minions» startled by the sudden attack to their center, Yui took the opportunity and charged at them as she started swinging her swords at the foes. At that moment, the eyes of the virtual rodent mobs turned from red to green and Tetsu who was a bit further back, could see that the level of the monsters was changing as well. _This will make things difficult. Although I was saving it for __him__, it seems I don't have much of a choice. _Tetsu thought to himself as he wasted no time retrieving another weapon from his inventory. Back with Yui, although she was too focused on actually fighting the mobs, she could still tell that their program was altered again just like the last two times due to the increasing difficulty of the said monsters. "Get down!" was the last thing Yui heard before she hit the ground. Almost right after, she saw Tetsu jump in between her and the surrounding monsters as he took a peculiar shaped sword with grooves on the long, somewhat curved blade signifying that it was segmented before getting into a position similar to the skill «Tsujikaze» for the Katana. _A katana sword skill? That weapon doesn't seem to be a katana though. _Yui thought to herself when she compared the weapon to the stance. She was proven wrong however when the sword began glowing a light yellow color signaling that the system accepted the use of the sword skill. With a shout, Tetsu activated the sword skill, swinging his blade in an omnidirectional direction clockwise. At the same time, the blade began to extend just like how a snake blade would, increasing the range of the attack. However, the sword skill didn't end there as Tetsu then swung horizontally the opposite direction, abruptly changing the direction of the whip-like blade's momentum. He then pivoted to the right before swinging his sword diagonally down from left to right, again changing the direction of the weapon's momentum. He then did a back flip, swinging his sword at the enemies behind him. As he landed on the ground again, the glow in his sword went out signaling the end of the skill.

"What was that skill?" Yui asked in shock not expecting anything like that.

"No time Kirigaya, we gotta get out of here! Reinforcements are coming!" Tetsu exclaimed before throwing down a smoke bomb which allowed them just enough time to get away from the enemy mobs. The two ran through the woods with as much speed as their dexterity stat allowed, unable to relax until they reached back into the town. "Man that was a close call!" Tetsu exclaimed with a grin. "I didn't think we'd make it out of there without dying."

"I'm surprised that you can be so carefree about that." Yui said but she couldn't but smile too.

"Well, we got through it didn't we? That's all that matters." Tetsu replied. "You gotta lighten up Kirigaya."

"You're not supposed to be calling me by my last name in this world remember?" Yui reminded Tetsu about the unspoken rule of not using a player's real name in the VR world.

"I can't exactly call you by your game name either since I know it's your first name in real life." Tetsu rebutted.

"Oh right." Yui said somewhat embarrassed due to what that would look to other people.

**(To the people who don't know about this part of Japanese society, if you call a person by their first name, it means that you're really close. In the case of a male and female, if they're calling each other by their first names, it's very likely that they're siblings, childhood friends, or dating/married. You should be able to figure out which one these two are thinking of.)**

"Seriously, why'd you have to use your real name for your avatar?" Tetsu asked with annoyance in his tone. "Ah well, I'll get used to it someday. Let's go get a drink or something Yui." At this, Yui became more embarrassed since a guy that she knew IRL was calling her by her first name. Granted, it was her fault for using her real name for her avatar, but nonetheless, she was embarrassed about it.

"I know a café that we can go to that's run by a friend of mine." Yui suggested remembering the tall giant known as Agil who ran a café in the town which was a virtual world equivalent to the Dicey Café from real life during the time the latter was closed in the morning and evening. After a nod of agreement, the two set off for the café in question. As they did so, Tetsu could feel the stares of many of the people they passed by, the majority of the stares being from males who appeared to be jealous of him because he was walking next to Yui. Their stares were so intense, Tetsu felt that he was beginning to hallucinate because he saw them put on headbands that read 'Protect Yui-sama~ The Black Princess Protection Force~'. _...Those should be the hallucinations generated by my own mind right? _Tetsu thought to himself with slight worry after realizing how popular Yui was before the girl in question began to talk to him.

"By the way, you still haven't answered my question as to what you did back there." Yui said to Tetsu completely oblivious to the stares from the people around them. "What kind of weapon is that?" She asked while pointing to the weapon currently in its sheath on his back. The blade looked like any other one handed sword albeit on the large and long side. At this Tetsu looked uneasy as he looked around, checking if anyone was listening in on them before beginning to manipulate his menu with his right hand. Soon after, a system message came into Yui's view.

«Tetsu has requested a private chat with you, will you accept? Yes or No»

Although Yui was unsure as to why Tetsu wanted to switch their conversation to private mode, she selected yes. Upon doing so, «Private Chat» mode was activated for the two of them, meaning nobody else would be able to hear a word of what they said even with the Listening skill at the maximum level. "I'll tell you if you promise not to tell anyone. I've been keeping it a secret." Tetsu as he scratched the back of his head. After receiving a nod of confirmation from the girl, Tetsu continued. "Remember when the «Cross Weapon» system was introduced into the game?"

"You mean the update that allowed people to create new types of weapons through the combination of parts from different weapon types?" Yui asked in response.

"That's the one I'm talking about." Tetsu replied before pointing to the sword on his back. "This weapon here was something created through that system."

"What were the two weapon types you combined?" Yui asked remembering how all of the cross weapons she's seen including the gun blade were a combination of two weapon types.

"I didn't use just two, I combined four weapons." Tetsu replied. "The basic design and frame is from the one handed long sword. If you saw the curve of the blade, you should have seen it was similar to that of a katana. The qualities I took from the two handed sword was the length and weight which is the real reason I use the Titan's Gauntlets. The last weapon type I added was the whip. I'm pretty sure that you saw that part when I extended the blade. Basically, my weapon is like a giant and heavy snake blade.

"That must have been difficult." Yui said. "It's already hard enough combining two weapon types. Why did you combine four weapon types? And while I'm at it, why do we need to talk about this in Private Chat mode? The cross weapon system isn't exactly new."

"Diversity" Tetsu replied simply as he sent his weapon back to his inventory. "Due to the cross weapon system, it allows my weapon to use the sword skills of the one handed sword, the two handed sword, and the katana. With the addition of the capabilities of the whip, I have a longer range of attack and it's harder for enemies to predict it." After saying that, Tetsu clenched his fist. "As to why I want to keep it a secret, there's someone I want to defeat. I especially want to keep this a secret from him until the next time we fight."

"Someone you want to defeat?" Yui asked not expecting to see this side of her classmate. "Like a rival?"

"I guess that's one way of putting it." Tetsu said in response. "Actually, it's more like one person endlessly chasing after another who's far away. I haven't been able to beat this guy even once. That's why before it's too late, I want to beat him with all of I've got." He then caught himself and stopped talking. "Sorry about boring you with my little sob story. Just forget about what I just said okay? Anyway, aren't we already at this café you mentioned?" He said as pointed to the door of the building that Yui unconsciously led them to.

"Ah right, we should be going in now." Yui said somewhat nervously before opening the door to the café. Right before they were about to enter Tetsu seemed to have gotten a message. After closing the window, Tetsu began to leave.

"Sorry, but I got some business to take care of." Tetsu said to Yui. "I'll see you at school tomorrow."

"Um, okay see you." Yui replied as she went inside into the bar.

"Welcome." Agil's voice could be heard from the bar.

"Good afternoon Agil-san." Yui replied politely as she walked in.

"Yo Yui, what's up?" Klein said from one of the bar stools with a drink in hand.

"Yui-chan, long time no see!" Lizbeth said from a nearby table along with Silica and Sinon.

"Hello everyone, it's nice to see you all." Yui said. "These days, it's rare that we're all here at the same time."

"I know right? We don't even go hunting together much these days." Klein said. "So who was that guy you were just with? He's different from the one last time. Is he your boyfriend?"

"Phttt!?" Yui cried out before tangling her feet and losing her balance. Luckily she was able to regain it shortly afterward. "That's not it! We were only party members for today!" She exclaimed in embarrassment.

"You two didn't look like you just met today." Klein said in response clearly wanting to tease the girl a majority of the people currently in the room thought of as a niece of sorts.

"I know him in the real world, he is my classmate at school, nothing more than that." Yui replied somewhat annoyed but not angry.

"Eh, that must be nice, playing a VRMMO with classmates." Agil said as he began preparing a drink for Yui.

"Ah right, you were already going for Ste-" Klein wasn't able to finish his sentence for Yui who was red in embarrassment, had kicked him in the nuts again, making the katana wielder fall to the floor in pain, causing everyone else in the room to sweat drop. It was then Yui saw from the corner of her eye a person running past the shop in a blur. Even if she could only see the figure for a moment, from the gun blade and clothes, Yui could already tell it was her regular partner Steel. Remembering the text he sent earlier that day which said he wouldn't be online today, Yui became curious as to why he was online and headed towards the transport gate.

"I gotta go now, I'll see you later!" Yui exclaimed after gulping down the drink Agil gave her before bolting out the door.

"What's got her so worked up?" Klein asked having been on the ground in pain when Steel had run past and therefore did not see him. At this, Agil just chuckled while Lisbeth, Silica and Sinon mentally cheered Yui on. Back to the girl in question, she had followed Steel to one of the higher level snow areas where even the common monsters matched the power of boss monsters in the lower level dungeons. _What is he doing here? _Yui thought to herself as she continued onwards. To her surprise, Steel hadn't noticed she was following him and she was sure he had a high «Searching» skill. After getting a glimpse of his face, Yui could see that Steel looked preoccupied at the moment for some reason, even when there currently weren't any monsters in sight. It was as if he was engaged in a conversation with somebody else. Seeing that nobody else was around and that Steel was moving his fingers, Yui concluded that the conversation in question was through messages. All of a sudden, a loud crashing sound came from the nearby trees and was coming closer towards the snow covered clearing Steel was standing in the middle of.

"So you've finally come out huh?" Steel said with a grin and growing excitement in his voice. "This is going to be fun." As if those were the magic words that awakened the beast from its slumber, a loud roar rang out from a short distance away before a large figure jumped out from the trees and landed right in front of him. Soon after the beast's arrival, seven full health bars appeared above its silhouette along with its name «The Ice Demon». True to its name, its appearance was that of a light blue gargoyle that was at least 3 times larger than its challenger. Seeing that Steel was planning to challenge a high leveled boss on his own, Yui couldn't help but be shocked. _What is he thinking!? _Yui exclaimed in her mind as the Ice Demon drew its own sword which was much larger than Steel's and looked as cold and unforgiving as its owner. "I bet Yui would be all worried about this, seeing that it took an entire raid party to take it down." Steel said to himself with a good natured smile. "However, its attack power doesn't mean a thing if it can't hit me. I guess that's how I would respond to her." What happened after he said that shocked the girl in question. Along with the familiar gun blade that Yui was used to seeing, Steel also drew out another blade, an emerald green long sword which Yui remembered that it was a boss drop received during a boss fight a couple of months ago. _Is he trying to dual wield? _Yui thought, wondering if he could actually do it. She would find out for herself soon as Steel began to get into position and charge up for the sword skill «Rage Spike», making the blade glow a bright yellow. With a shout, he let loose the sword skill which propelled him at his foe at high speed. Unfortunately, his sword lost its glow, signaling the end of the sword skill when he was just half a meter away from hitting the Ice Demon. _This is bad. _Yui thought with worry for her friend/crush. _«Rage Spike» can only hit the target if it's within a ten meter range and the Ice Demon was just half a meter out of range. Steel-kun will surely get hit during the period of time he can't move! _Sure enough, the Ice Demon decided to take this opportunity and began swinging its giant sword downward at Steel. Yui was already drawing her swords so she could help him.

_CLANG_

Before Yui could start charging in, Steel had used the green sword in his left hand to perform the basic attack for the one handed sword «Slant» to counter the Ice Demon's incoming attack. Having its attack successfully parried, the posture and balance of the boss monster went into disarray, thus leaving its body open. Steel made full use of this chance by charging up for the sword skill «Vorpal Strike» with his gun blade which hit the Gargoyle creature square on, getting rid of a good chunk of its HP. "Eat lead." Steel said before pulling the trigger on his gun blade which was still lodged in the Ice Demon's abdomen. At the pull of the trigger, several bullets continuously shot out and damaged the Ice Demon from the inside, making it lose even more HP. By the time Steel ran out of bullets and had to move away or else get hit, he had already depleted close to two of the seven health bars the boss originally had. In response to the large amount of damage taken in the short period of time, the Ice Demon spread its wings and started taking off for the sky. "I won't let you get away!" Steel shouted before readying the sword skill «Sonic Leap» with the sword in his left hand, making it glow a bright green color. With a shout, he kicked off the ground and shot himself into the air. When he was as the same height as the gargoyle, Steel slashed at its left wing, forcing it to descend back to the ground. Almost immediately afterwards, Steel unleashed the sword skill «Vertical Square» with the gun blade in his right hand and kept slashing at the Ice Demon with bright blue slashes up and down in the shape of a rhombus. At the same time, he sheathed the long sword in his left hand before manipulating the menu. When the last hit in the combo had finished, yet another new weapon had finished materializing in Steel's left hand. The new weapon in question appeared to be a rapier which was the size of a two handed long sword which was then used for the basic rapier skill «Linear» to impale the Ice Demon just before the two of them hit the ground. Steel quickly jumped away from his foe after landing and redrew his green long sword, the large rapier still stuck inside the Ice Demon's body, slowly but surely causing it to continuously decrease its health. Deciding not to give his opponent much elbow room in terms of retaliating, Steel then charged in, charging up for the skill «Meteor Fall» with his right hand sword and «Slant» with his left sword. With a shout, he threw his gun blade into the air, attracting the attention of the Ice Demon for a brief moment which was enough for him to attack his foe's abdomen with his hand. Just as the monster was about to land a counterattack with its claws, Steel let loose the other sword skill with his left hand sword to parry it, buying enough time for himself to grab the sword he threw into the air before swinging it down the Ice Demon's body, followed shortly afterwards by a series of thrusts from the left handed sword which was using a new sword skill. Yui could only stare in shock at the sight before her. She knew that Steel often practiced new things by himself in private but it was obvious from the fluidity of his movements that this wasn't his first time doing it. _I can't believe this, Steel-kun is using Skill Connect! _Yui thought to herself as she continued watching her partner take on the Ice Demon by himself using a combo of chained sword skills from his two swords, his movements being relaxed and graceful yet at the same time aggressive and rough. _What's this feeling I'm getting? _Yui asked herself. _Steel-kun is fighting how he usually does but at the same time I feel that something is different about him. _Yui lost her train of thought after Steel said something that shocked her even more.

"Starburst Stream!" Steel exclaimed as he began charging up his swords for the sword skill before beginning his assault. He started by slashing the Ice Demon with a horizontal attack using his right sword. This was soon followed by a vertical slash from his left sword and process was repeated before he attacked once more with a horizontal slash using his right sword. Steel then repositioned himself so that both of his swords were pointed to the left horizontally. Using his right foot as a pivot point, he swung both swords horizontally in a spinning motion twice. After steadying himself, he slashed downward and upward in an X shape before doing it again except using a reverse grip. As Steel and the Ice Demon went blade to blade, Yui was able to figure out that Steel wasn't using the actual Dual Blades skill but rather replicating the movements. However, the question still remained as to how he knew all of the movements of Starburst Stream when Kirito hadn't shown any of the Dual Blade skills in public yet. Back to the battle at hand, Steel was about done with the combo and charged up both of his swords for the same sword skill «Vorpal Strike». With one last shout, Steel thrust both of his swords into the beast which cried out before bursting into data fragments. The words 'Congratulations' appeared above Steel who fell on his knees in exhaustion signaling the end of the battle. "It's over." Steel said with a pant. "Man, I could barely keep that up near the end. I'm exhausted." He then stood up and began manipulating his menu and put away the emerald green long sword and the rapier back into his inventory. Afterwards, he seemed to be typing something. "I'll leave the rest to you then." He said once he was done with everything and closed his eyes before taking a deep breath.

"Steel-kun?" Yui said to her friend having decided to make her presence known to him now. At this, Steel turned around in shock.

"Yui, what are you doing here!?" Steel asked not even trying to hide the surprise in his voice.

"That's what I should be asking you." Yui replied. "Earlier today, you sent me a text saying that you wouldn't be online today."

"Ah, about that, I had some business to do IRL but it ended earlier than planned." Steel replied. "I decided to use my extra time training." He said this in his usual carefree tone.

"It's just like you to call fighting a boss training." Yui said not exactly surprised at this as this was not the first time that Steel challenged a boss like this to her dismay.

"What can I say? I have to fight more tougher opponents if I want to get stronger." Steel said that with a grin on his face.

"Moving on, you used Skill Connect just now!" Yui said still surprised from earlier.

"So you saw that huh? Looks like I can't hide it from you anymore." Steel said with a slightly nervous expression on his face as he scratched the back of his head. "Yes, as you just saw, I've been practicing Skill Connect in secret."

"I'm actually not that surprised by that. You already practice a lot of stuff in private and although I was shocked a bit when I first saw it, I knew you'd figure out Skill Connect sooner or later." Yui said with a smile. "But why did you come out all the way out here to practice?"

"Because barely anyone come here. I won't have to worry too much about people seeing me." Steel answered. "However, it seems that I got spotted anyway. So why did you come out to this area?" At this, Yui became nervous having just realized that she was there because she had sort of stalked hum due to her curiosity. Obviously, she didn't want to say that out loud and she hoped Steel didn't figure it out. "Ah, I get it, you came out here for training too!" Steel exclaimed. _For once, I'm glad he's so dense!_

"Anyway, we should leave this zone so we can teleport out of here." Yui said as she turned away in embarrassment, wanting to change the topic. As she was about to head for the exit, she heard the sound of a sword stabbing through a body. When she turned around, she saw Steel being stabbed in the chest with a large sword by a person who appeared out of nowhere. The attacker looked like a solidified humanoid shadow. "Steel-kun!" Yui cried out in worry of her friend as Steel was kicked to the ground.

"That's one down." The shadowy figure said as he looked down at Steel who was on the ground, writhing in pain. Yui couldn't hold in her anger any longer and she charged at the newcomer with her swords drawn. The shadowy figure calmly blocked all of the attacks with his blade. "It's not your turn yet Kirigaya Yui." The figure said calmly as he continued to parry Yui's attacks with ease. "This was just the start of my plan for revenge which included getting rid of this body guard of yours who's been getting in my way."

"So you're the one who's been targeting Yui you bastard." Steel said angrily as he struggle to get up due to the pain.

"I'm surprised you had that much fight left in you." The shadowy figure said with a hint of amusement in his voice. "I set the pain absorption setting to zero so you should be feeling an immense amount of pain right now and that's not very good for a person with your condition right?" Right then, a sound similar to that of a thunder storm filled the air, signaling that the system had detected the intruder and was ready to delete him. "It appears that I have to leave. Until next time." With a snap of his fingers, the shadowy figure disappeared in a puff of smoke. Immediately after he left the scene, Yui rushed over to Steel's side.

"Steel-kun, are you okay?" Yui asked with a worried expression on her face.

"Geez, no need to look so serious, it's not like I'm dead." Steel said trying to reassure the girl although it was hard to do since he was still in pain. "Just help me up will you? Once we leave this zone, I'll teleport back to my house before I log out."

"Sure thing." Yui said as she helped him up and get to the exit of the zone before going their separate ways with the teleport crystals.

_Later that night in the real world…_

A teenage boy was looking at the tranquil night scene from the window of his room with a sense of worry. "I hope you're alright Takeshi."

**Okay, that's the end of this chapter. Whew, this took a while to write you know? Well, anyway, hope you enjoyed it and this story in general. If you have any criticism or comments, don't hesitate to review, I use the reviews to better my stories. Anyway, see you later! **


	4. Laughing Coffin and Two Swordsmen

**Hello out there readers! Forest Dragon Slayer back with another chapter of this fanfic. Thanks for all of the reviews that you've given this fanfic and I'm glad that they've all been positive for the most part. Just reading those has given me ideas in how to continue this fanfic and make it more interesting. So in a sense, you people are also part of the writing process and for that I thank you. **

**Moving on, I would like to say something to the person(s) who said that Takeshi was Steel from the death game of SAO. Please don't take any offense to this but I would like to question your train of logic. However, it may also be due to some miscommunication on my part or maybe I read the review wrong. Anyway, according to the novel, Yui had the appearance of an 8-10 year old girl when she's first introduced and I had her start at that age when she became a human through some process I have yet to make up, even after having written four chapters already. And right now in the story, Yui is a 16 year old so that means that at least 6 years have passed after she's made into a human. We must also remember that it probably took Kirito/Kazuto quite some time to realize this process as he hasn't even accomplished that now in the novel which is now currently about 2 years after the SAO incident. Next, there's the fact that Sword Art Online had an age rating of 15 and up so if you think about the timing, it'd be impossible for Takeshi to be the Steel from that time in the original SAO even if he were one of the exceptions to the age rating and was 10 which is the youngest known playing age from back then. Sorry about that folks, this logic stuff just popped into my head and into my author's note. Now that I think about it, I'm sure I wrote something somewhere in one of the earlier chapters that disproved that theory in the first place. Ah well, too late, I already typed it. That's how I do my author notes. However, I will be featuring the Steel from back then in this chapter.**

**One more thing, to those of you readers who haven't seen the Phantom Bullet story arc (The Gun Gale Online one) and/or the Alcization story arc, there will be slight spoilers about those arcs in this chapter and I thought I should warn you. In fact, most of this chapter is basically about the crusade against Laughing Coffin that was talked about for a bit in the Phantom Bullet arc as well as the second chapter of this fanfic (I just noticed I didn't put a spoiler alert in that chapter) and I expanded on it while keeping to the canon for the most part by using facts from the light novel series. That actually took a ton of research on the entire novel series to make sure it was accurate for the most part since facts regarding the event are all over the place. No seriously, the information I found and used for this chapter in general came from volumes 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10. That's about half of the series! Anyway, I guess that whole part would be like a spoiler then. Ah well. Sorry to make you readers listen to another of my mindless author note babbling. Hopefully you people won't mind what's basically inserting an OC into an expanded canon scene.**

**Now, enough with all of that, onto the chapter!**

**I don't own Sword Art Online, Reki Kashiwara does**

Kirigaya Kazuto had parked his jet black motorcycle in a parking spot located in front of a café where he was supposed to meet someone. _Well, at least he didn't ask me to meet him at some fancy place like a certain S__elf-Defense Officer I know. _Kazuto thought to himself before entering the café.

_Elsewhere…_

"Achoo!"

"Are you okay Kiku-san?" A man wearing a lab coat with an anime shirt underneath asked the man who sneezed who was standing next to him. "You should be more careful or you might catch a cold."

"Actually Higa-kun, I feel it's more like Kirito-kun is insulting me again." Kikuoka replied with a bitter smile.

_Back to the actual story…_

Upon entering the said café, he heard a voice call him over. "Oy, Kirito, over here." The voice came from a man who appeared to be slightly older than Kirito by a few years and wore casual attire that consisted of jeans, a grey shirt and a dark blue sweatshirt. He was sitting at one of the window seats in the café.

"It's not Kirito, but Kazuto. It's a breach of manners to use character names out here after all, Steel." Kazuto said in response as he sat in the seat across from the man. A waiter soon came to their table and Kazuto ordered some coffee.

"Yet you still call me Steel." Steel replied. "Ah well, we're used to calling each other by our SAO names anyway. Might as well stick with it." He said this in a care free tone.

"You're as laid back as ever." Kirito said as he took out a tablet from his backpack.

"You haven't changed much either." Steel replied before noticing Kirito taking out the tablet. "So what did you want to talk about?" He asked, knowing that Kirito wasn't the type to beat around the bush. They wouldn't get anywhere anyway if they just began reminiscing about the old days.

"It's about what happened two days ago in one of the Ice Areas of Soul Art Online. I'm sure you know about it since your son was involved." Kirito said as he began manipulating the screen before bringing up a video of the events that happened at the end of the last chapter where Steel and Yui were assaulted. "Since the system got hacked, the security system automatically kicked in and was able to get footage of the intruder. Look at the way he fights, doesn't it look familiar?" He said that last sentence with a serious tone on his face.

"It looks somewhat different but there's no mistaking it. It's the same style of that guy I killed so many years ago in that hell of a battle." Steel replied, his tone also turning into a serious one as he clenched his hands together.

_Kirito's point of view…_

I agreed with Steel's way of thinking towards that battle against the PK guild «Laughing Coffin». «Laughing Coffin» was formed on the first day of 2024, and was eliminated on a certain summer night after August. Of course, it wasn't automatically disbanded, but rather vanquished by about 50 members from the clearing group in a crusade as we had used force to destroy them. The leader of the group was a member of the largest guild «Holy Dragon Alliance». Several strong players from the «Knights of the Blood» and other guilds joined in too. Of course, as a solo player, I was also invited to join the group. After the Death Gun incident, the memory of that day stayed fresh in my mind even if I've moved on from it.

Before we were to embark on our crusade, it had been decided that we would have a briefing at the guild headquarters of the Divine Dragons Alliance on the 56th floor. It was around noon when I arrived to that floor via teleport gate. As I looked around the town square, I felt a tense atmosphere in the area, probably because a lot of players from the clearing group came down to one of the middle floors. It was soon after that I heard the teleportation gate transfer yet another player to this floor. When I turned around, I saw a girl with long chestnut colored hair that was split neatly in two and her two sparkling hazelnut eyes were almost blinding. Her thin body was covered by a red and white knight-like combat uniform, and there was an elegant silver-white rapier sheathed in her white leather scabbard. From just a glance, I could immediately recognize the girl to be Asuna, also known as «The Flash» and the sub-leader of the Knights of Blood.

"Yo Asuna, you're participating in the crusade too?" I said in greeting. "This kind of thing is sort of grim."

"Of course I am!" Asuna replied. "I'm the sub-leader of the KoB after all. It's too bad the commander isn't participating though. I think overall morale would be much higher if he were here."

"Heathcliff… I have no idea what goes through that man's head. When the issue of Laughing Coffin was brought up to him, he just said he would leave it to us and practically ignored the whole thing. I wonder why." At the time, I truly was curious as to why the great paladin with Holy Sword wouldn't want to help defeat a PK guild. But back then, I didn't know his true identity.

"I'm sure the commander has his reasons." Asuna said in Heathcliff's defense as we sat down on a nearby bench. "Anyway, let's have lunch. The meeting doesn't start until one o'clock anyway. I made enough for two." At this, I couldn't hide my excitement as she quickly manipulated her menu. After a short time, she called forth a small basket and took out two sandwiches filled with vegetables and roasted meat. When she offered me one, I received it gratefully and said "Itadakimasu" before digging in.

"This is great, you've really improved your cooking skill since the last time we saw each other." I said honestly as the sandwich's flavor was already at or above the quality level of some of the high level dishes amongst my famous shops list.

"You think so?" Asuna replied as she bit into her sandwich and started elegantly chewing on it. "I thought it was lacking a little in flavor."

"If only we had mayonnaise or soy sauce. That'd definitely improve the flavor." I replied as I began to remember the slightly sour and sweet flavor of the Japanese fast food that I had eaten occasionally until two years before in the real world. We spent some time talking like this until I heard a familiar voice come from behind where we were sitting.

"Oy Kirito, I've been looking for you. The meeting's going to start soon and I don't know where the base of the DDA is." When I turned around, I saw it was Steel, the person I had met last night and had a duel with. He was also the person presently sitting in front of me at the cafe. It was then Steel noticed that Asuna was sitting next to me, causing him to stop in his tracks. "Sorry, I interrupted your lovey dovey time." He said beginning to back away a little.

"It's not like that!" We both exclaimed at the same time. I couldn't tell whether he was actually apologizing or teasing us. Maybe he was doing both at the same time.

"Geez, no need to get all defensive like that." Steel said in response as he checked his ears to make sure he could still hear after we had shouted back at him. It seems that he forgot that the ears of our virtual avatars wouldn't get damaged so he should be able to hear fine even if a cannon was fired right next to him. Not that there were any cannons in this death game in the first place or it'd be lot easier to fight some of the bosses.

"Um, Kirito-kun, who's this?" Asuna asked me with a somewhat curious expression on her face.

"Ah right, he's not a clearer so I don't think you would have met him yet." I said in response. "I'll introduce you two then. This is Steel, a player I met yesterday and this is Asuna from the Knights of Blood."

"It's an honor to meet «The Flash» in person." Steel said with a smile as he extended his hand for a handshake. Asuna returned the greeting and the two shook hands.

"It's nice to meet you. I hope we get along." Asuna replied politely.

"That reminds me, you're not a clearer so why are you participating in this crusade?" I asked afterwards. Everyone that was recruited for the crusade was part of the clearing group, the players that fought on the front lines. Volunteers were also recruited but they also were all from the clearing group. Steel was the sole exception.

"If you're worried about my level, don't be." Steel replied with a grin. "Based on our duel yesterday, I guess I'm probably just 3-4 levels below you Kirito. I may not participate in many of the boss battles but I train on the top floors like the other clearers."

"If you're at that level, why aren't you part of the clearing group in the first place?" Asuna asked. I couldn't blame her for wanting to ask that question. The clearing group needed as many people as it could get in order to defeat more bosses more quickly so we could beat this death game as soon as possible.

"Hmm, there's a ton of reasons but if I had to pick one, I'd say it's because of my laziness." Steel said in response. The answer and the somewhat nonchalant tone used with it completely threw me and Asuna off as we did not expect that to come out of his mouth. "I remember wanting to join in on fighting the boss at times but on the day of the battles, I usually overslept or didn't feel like waking up and getting out of bed. I have taken part in fighting some of the field bosses though."

"In some ways, you're even lazier than Kirito-kun." Asuna said with a bit of a giggle.

"I'm not exactly sure whether or not I should feel offended by that." I said, actually feeling a bit emotionally hurt by her comment.

"However, I got a bone to pick with these Laughing Coffin players so that's why I got up early for this." Steel continued with a serious expression on his face before it returned to normal. "Oh right, I came here asking where the DDA guild base was!"

"Now that I think about it, I need to meet up with the other KoB members." Asuna said as she began to pack up her stuff. "Well Kirito-kun, I'll leave it to you, see you two later!" she said before leaving.

"Are you sure you two aren't dating?" Steel asked me with a teasing smirk on his face once Asuna was out of sight. "You can tell me. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

"Let's just get going." I said in an annoyed tone as I started walking off. Steel just responded to that with a smile.

"Whatever you say Kirito." Steel said with a grin which I could swear contained a hint of mischief before following me. A few minutes later, the two of us arrived at the headquarters of the Divine Dragons Alliance, its appearance more like a castle or a fort than a guild home. When we entered the building, there were already a good deal of people inside including Asuna who was with the other KoB members and Klein who was with his guild Fuurinkazan. It seems that the meeting was just about to start as Schmitt, one of the DDA's leading members, came to the front of the room and got everyone's attention before beginning to speak. **(Note: It's never mentioned in the novel as to who the leader of the crusade was. The only clue that's mentioned is that he was a leading member from the DDA. Also in the anime, the leader looked like Schmitt so I'm just going to say he was the leader. To those who don't know who Schmitt is, he should be somewhere in the first season.)**

"Thank you all for coming." Schmitt said in a somewhat loud voice. Like usual, he was wearing his high quality armor and kept his lance and shield on his back, even when we were in a safe zone. I guess this is the result of what happened with the Ring Incident/Inside Area Murder Incident that happened a while back. "We will now begin our briefing on the enemy and our strategy." As he said this, a map was put onto the board behind him. "We have received information that the enemy has set up base in a safe zone on one of the middle floors. Our scouts have been able to confirm this. There are now currently 34 members in Laughing Coffin so we will enter in raid formation before breaking into smaller formations, following the plan we discussed 3 days ago to seal the safe zone from their base. We have also have received more information about the enemy members." With that, another screen was displayed before all of us, showing images of key members along with their battle abilities, weapons, skills, and names. Schmitt began going through some of the members, occasionally mentioning something to watch out for from a specific foe. Aside from Laughing Coffin's leader PoH **(Pronounced as 'poo' in the anime lol!)** and his powerful butcher knife looking dagger «Mate Chopper», Schmitt told us to especially watch out for two other players who liked to wear their personal colors. They were «Red Eyed XaXa» who was skilled with an Estoc and «Johnny Black» who favored the use of a poison dagger, two people who would in the future be two-thirds of Death Gun and the latter person would stab me with succinylcholine, almost killing me to get revenge on me having thwarted them. However, I did not know that those events would occur in the future but I could still tell they'd be dangerous. After all of the information had been relayed to us. Schmitt decided to say one more thing. "Remember, these people will not hesitate to kill us. We must not hesitate as well or we will lose our lives." He had addressed the issue we probably all were thinking about, the idea of killing someone. It was an unwritten rule not to let a person's HP go to zero no matter what because they'd really die if that were to happen. Unlike the members of Laughing Coffin who killed other players in cold blood, we of the crusade group were wondering if we could kill them if necessary. That thought stayed on our minds the entire way to the enemy base.

It didn't take us very long to reach the cave Laughing Coffin had set up base in thanks to the teleport gates and the information from the info brokers. At this point, some of us had already begun to break into our own conversations. "Hey Kirito, don't you think it's a bit odd that we haven't run into any of the Laughing Coffin members yet? I mean, you'd think they'd at least have some guards or something." Steel asked me as we continued walking through the cave.

"This is supposed to be a surprise attack so they wouldn't even know we're coming." I said in response. However, I too had a feeling that something was very wrong. We had now entered what appeared to be the central part of the cave that had many floating platforms around.

"Our numbers and average level is much higher than the enemy. Maybe they'll surrender without a fight." Schmitt had said with a hopeful tone. I think everyone, including myself was thinking that. We didn't want to end the lives of anyone. It was then I felt a strong sense of bloodlust. I quickly turned around and I saw the members of Laughing Coffin up on the upper platforms, ready to ambush us. Some were already in the process of doing that as they jumped down. From the beginning, I already had to start fighting one of their members. We hadn't expected this and at first, the crusade had fallen into slight panic and disarray. My first opponent was the Estoc user «Red Eyed XaXa» whom which I didn't know at the time. He was dressed in red. However, he wasn't dressed completely in red. This Estoc user merely had his eyes and hair red as well as a reverse cross sign dyed on his grey helmet. He was quick, not as fast as Asuna obviously but fast enough to give me a hard time trying to find an opening. XaXa pulled his arm back and readied a sword skill for the rapier class.

"Kirito, switch!" I heard Steel's voice from behind me. Now that I think about it, it was rather odd for one to say that to the person in front of them. Either way, I didn't have time to think so I just jumped back Steel immediately taking my place with his own sword skill ready. Both Steel and XaXa activated their skills around the same time. XaXa had activated the rapier skill «Star Splash» and Steel activated the defensive one handed sword skill «Spinning Shield». XaXa's rapid thrust attacks were blocked by the transparent shield that was Steel's sword being spun at a rapid speed, causing XaXa to lose his balance for a brief period of time. That was enough for me as I rushed forward and Steel jumped back. I used the opening Steel had made for me and struck at XaXa with the 4-hit sword skill «Horizontal Square» and began slashing at his sides in a rhombus shape, effectively lowering his HP a good amount. I wasn't going to let him recover from that either. After dodging a sudden thrust from the Estoc, I activated the sword skill «Sharp Nail», causing me to swing upwards from the bottom right position and grazed past XaXa's left leg, stopping his motion. I then swung from left to right horizontally slashing at his midsection. My last attack was a swing down from the top right side that sliced into the left arm XaXa raised to defend himself from slightly below the elbow. His HP was already in the yellow, not that much farther away from red. It then looked like he was ready to retreat. On a side note, I could see Steel in the background slashing at many foes with his poison enhanced sword, causing them to fall over paralyzed. For a guy who acts all carefree, I was surprised to see that his fighting style was rather aggressive, even more so than the night before when we dueled.

"I'll… definitely kill you later." XaXa said to me before jumping back in retreat. When I tried to follow after him, another member of Laughing Coffin got in front and attacked me, forcing me to focus on him. This was Johnny Black, the poison dagger wielder. I made sure to avoid getting even scratched by that blade of his as we continued to keep clashing or else that would lead to my death. All of a sudden, Steel had gotten in-between the two of us and started driving Johnny back with his sword. The first thought that came to my mind was how did he get here so fast? Last time I checked, he was at least 20 meters away from me.

"Kirito, go after that guy, I'll hold him off!" Steel exclaimed to me as he took my place in clashing blades with Johnny. With a nod, I ran after the disappearing figure that was XaXa before another Laughing Coffin got in my way. This one used a curved blade that looked like it was used to hack off the body parts of others. This guy wasn't as hard to defeat as he left way too many openings with his wide sword swings. In about 3 minutes, I had chipped away a lot of his health points and broke his weapon using «Snake Bite». After defeating him, I heard cries of fear nearby me. Three crusaders teamed up on one Laughing Coffin member, the Laughing Coffin member with barely any HP left. The three crusaders were trying to convince him to surrender. However, as predicted, most of the members of Laughing Coffin would rather die than surrender and the cornered red player just attacked the three crusaders who became hesitant in attacking further. One even threw down his weapons saying that he just couldn't do it. The red player killed all three of them in cold blood, having a maniacal smile on his face the entire time. Immediately afterwards, he came at me with his sword ready to cut me down. In response, I parried his blade with mine to knock it back. I saw the opening and I brought my sword down on him, beheading him and getting rid of the remainder of his health points. That was the first person I killed during my time here in Aincrad and he wouldn't be my last. The rest of the battle continued like that, with heavy causalities on both sides. During this time, I killed yet another person by impaling him through where the heart should be. At the end of it, I was exhausted but I didn't feel like resting at all.

"Good work today I guess." I could hear Steel say from behind me after all of the Laughing Coffin members got rounded up. I turned around and he threw me a potion. I gratefully caught the healing potion, flicked the cork open with my thumb, and drank it greedily. Even though the taste carried a hint of bitter lemon juice, I thought it was delicious. I tossed the empty bottle to the ground, watched it emit a small red light as it disappeared, and looked up. "Man, I thought I'd be mentally prepared for all this but it was a lot more than I bargained for. I don't think I'll be able to sleep well tonight."

"I get what you mean, I don't think any of us expected it to result in so many casualties." I said in response as I surveyed the area. The small amount of Laughing Coffin members who were alive, with the exception of PoH who fled, were all being tied up until someone got ready the Corridor Crystal that would lead them to the prison of the Black Iron Castle. "I really don't want to remember any of this. I especially don't want to remember the players I killed today." As I said this, I clenched my fingers together.

"Sorry, but I can't really understand the feeling." Steel said with what appeared to be a sad tone. "I haven't killed anyone today. It's probably thanks to that poison I used that I didn't have to kill anyone. I used it all up by the first half of the battle though. I guess I was just lucky-" It was then he seemed to notice something coming towards us from behind me, I could tell from the way his eyes and body moved. "Kirito, move!" I heard him exclaim as I began to turn around and back up while drawing my sword. However, Steel beat me to the punch and was already locking swords with one of the Laughing Coffin members who apparently escaped from captivity and started attacking people with an abnormally large sword which he could somehow hold with one hand. "Everyone else stay back!" Steel exclaimed while still focusing on his new foe. "His movements are too erratic and unpredictable. It'll probably just add to the casualties if we all just charge in like that!" With that, the other members of the crusade nearest Steel and the Laughing Coffin member stayed where they were but kept a weapon at the ready, myself included. At this point, both combatants' health bars were in the yellow and were both slightly decreasing with each clash of swords. Initially, Steel had the upper hand, having had more HP than his opponent but it appeared that the Laughing Coffin member's weapon was strong enough to close that gap. If this kept up, Steel's health would fall to zero. I wasn't the only one to notice this as many others were ready to charge in to help. However, if they started doing that, the Laughing Coffin members we already captured might get loose and kill more of our members. It was then the Laughing Coffin member slashed diagonally upward with a powerful swing, knocking back Steel's sword and leaving a big opening which was used to his advantage as he stabbed Steel through the chest. Steel's health points began dropping at a much faster rate and even with his battle healing, he wouldn't last too long in this situation. Despite that, the look on Steel's face didn't change. He had a look on his face that showed an abundance of determination and that he wouldn't give up, even now. Before I knew it, my body began moving on its own as I reached for one of my throwing picks before getting into the throwing position. After charging it up with a throwing skill, I let it loose, aiming at Steel's opponent. Of course, I knew it would be dodged but my real intention was to give Steel an opening of his own. As expected, the enemy pulled back a bit to dodge the incoming projectile. With the sword no longer embedded in his body, Steel began to charge up for the Martial Arts skill «Gengetsu», causing his feet to start to glow a red color as he jumped a little. With a shout, his body began to flip backwards as his right foot kicked his foe in the chin, effectively knocking back the enemy. When Steel's feet landed back on the ground, he wasted no time activating the sword skill «Snake Bite». Unlike me who used this skill for my Outside System Skill «Arms Blast» to destroy my opponent's weapon, he used it to strike at his opponent's sides with a speed that made the attack look like a beast trying to chomp down on its foe. This attack resulted in the enemy's health bar to go into the red. Just like a lot of other people, Steel started to become hesitant when it got to this point as he didn't want to kill anyone. Unfortunately, his opponent didn't feel the same and began the counterattack. Now it seemed that Steel was the one who was losing the momentum as his foe kept on attacking without hesitation, Steel barely able to keep up his defense. Well, that's what I thought from how he was just taking all of those attacks. Now that I think about it, he maintained that calm yet serious look on his face even while being attacked, probably looking for an opening. After taking several more slashes, it seemed he got his opening as he charged up for the basic sword skill «Slant», using it to knock his opponent's sword back to create a large opening. At this point, time seemed to be moving slowly as Steel began to deliver the finishing blow with «Vorpal Strike», the skill moving his sword in a stabbing motion through the Laughing Coffin member's chest and slowly bringing his health bar to zero. Even as he was about to shatter into data fragments, the Laughing Coffin member still had the same maniacal smile on his face, a sight that was most likely burned into Steel's memory as the first person he's killed….

_Flashback End… (Back to third person point of view)_

**Mid-chapter Author Note: Sorry for making this Flashback so long. I feel that a majority of it was unnecessary but by the time I realized it, I already had 2,000-3,000 typed out so I just went with it. **

"So it has something to do with that guy huh?" Steel (The adult one just to remind you) said to Kirito. "Did this guy have any relatives that found out and wanted to take revenge or something?" He asked not expecting anything of the sort but at the same time he still felt it could be a possibility.

"Actually, he did have a relative it turns out." Kirito said as he began manipulating the holographic screen of his tablet.

"How do you know that? We don't even know what that guy's player name was, let alone his real name." Steel said in response.

"I have my ways of getting such information." Kirito said as he brought up a holographic profile. "We have the information and that's what's important."

"Where did you get this information in the first place?" Steel asked in curiosity as the files on SAO players, which dead or alive, contained info on everything from their character stats to their real life information, was for the most part confidential to the government.

"I have connections that can get me this kind of stuff." Kirito replied simply as if it wasn't a big deal, causing Steel to sweat drop a little. "Anyway, the person you had to fight at the end of the crusade had the player name of…

_Elsewhere again…_

"Achoo!" Kikuoka sneezed again.

"Kiku-san, are you sure you're not catching a cold?" Higa asked as he turned around from his work on a computer to face his superior.

"It's nothing, I must have been talked about again." Kikuoka said in response.

"If you say so…" Higa said, feeling skeptical about it. "By the way, did Kirito-kun ever mention why he needed those files from the SAO days?"

"He never said." Kikuoka replied as he thought to himself. "Well, I wouldn't be too surprised if it had something to do with the past or for research. Sword Art Online was the basis for every single Virtual Reality program out there. And as they say, sometimes, the past just catches up to you."

_And now, we switch scenes entirely to where Yui and her friends are…_

"Hey, Yui-chan, what are we going to do for the other team members we need?" Kaya asked Yui as the three were getting ready to leave for home. To explain, Yui, Kaya, and Sanae were planning on entering a team tournament in Soul Art Online that would take in a few days. However, each team had to have five team members and the girls only numbered three.

"I could ask Steel-kun, I'm sure he'd want to participate." Yui said in response, already taking out her phone to contact the said person. Not too long after sending it, Steel had replied back saying that he was in.

"I was already half expecting you to immediately think of him for this." Sanae said as Yui finished her reply to Steel. Ignoring Yui's embarrassed reaction, Sanae continued on. "Well, that takes care of the fourth member of our team, now we just need one more person."

"How about Mizuno from class B?" Kaya suggested. "She's a pretty good player and she can help with healing and support."

"We don't have any tanks so that won't work too well." Sanae rebutted. "You three are all based on a style that focuses on attack and speed without paying too much attention to defense. For support based players like me, we usually have to be protected while casting our spells. Me alone will be difficult to deal with but with a second one, it will be a struggle, even with the healing. I say we get someone that also follows the attack/speed style or a tank." It was then Yui noticed Takeshi walk past them and was just about to walk out of the classroom. Unlike a majority of the other students who decided to hang out and talk with friends after school, it seemed that he just went home right after. She then remembered that his character «Tetsu» fit that criteria and decided to ask him.

"Kurogane-san!" Yui called out to get his attention. Hearing his name, Takeshi turned around as Yui walked up to him.

"What do you want Yui?" Takeshi said in response, his somewhat rude tone still being used. Due to the fact that Takeshi had called her by her first name without any honorific so easily, Yui was unnerved by it a little. **(Remember the honorific system readers)**

"Could you refrain from calling me by my first name?" Yui said with a slightly irritated tone. "We don't know each other that well you know?"

"Don't feel like it, I'm already used to calling you by your first name now anyway." Takeshi replied nonchalantly. "Besides, you're the idiot who decided to use your real name for your in-game avatar."

"You're the idiot here, Baka!" Yui said in retort. It didn't take long for the two of them to get into yet another pointless argument, something that has been happening more frequently ever since two days ago, causing Kana and Sanae to sweat drop as it seemed that Yui forgot the reason she called out to Takeshi in the first place. To everyone else though, they couldn't catch a majority of the content of the conversation in the first place but there were a lot of people, mainly guys, who were jealous that Takeshi was speaking to Yui in such a casual way. Apparently, she was just as popular here in school as in Soul Art Online and it wasn't too long before Takeshi began to feel intimidating stares directed towards him, causing him to look around and saw people with headbands that read. _Protect Kirigaya-sama! _At this, Takeshi began to shake his head. _I'm hallucinating again aren't I?_ He thought to himself, remembering last time it happened back in the game when he was walking down the streets with the girl he was currently arguing with. _At least, I hope I am. _He then shook himself out of his thoughts and remembered that Yui was going to talk to him about something before it turned into a pointless argument.

"Weren't you going to talk to me about something?" Takeshi said with a bit of a sigh. "Just spit it out." Yui then was about to answer was but was pulled back by her friends into a small huddle. Takeshi just looked at the huddle and sweat dropped.

"Are you serious about asking this perv?" Kaya asked, remembering what happened a few days ago when Takeshi caught Yui who was falling down the stairs, the situation afterwards creating a misunderstanding that made it seem as if Takeshi was a pervert, thus temporarily causing his reputation to worsen. Even after the whole situation got cleared up, Kaya still had her suspicions towards him.

"He may be a jerk sometimes but from personal experience, I know he's reliable in combat at least." Yui explained. "His fighting style will also work well with Steel-kun's fighting style as well. At least he fits the criteria Sanae mentioned."

"If that's the case, we can't afford to be too picky, registration is due today." Sanae said in response.

"Fine, we can try him out and see if it'll work out." Kaya said with a bit of a grumble. "But if he tries to do anything bad, I'll decapitate him in the game."

"You know I can hear you." Takeshi said being a meter away from them, reminding the girls that he was still right there. He said this with a sigh of slight irritation at how violent Kaya was willing to be and how Yui insulted him right off the bat although she was intending to bring up positives about him. "You want me to join your team for that upcoming team tournament right? I'll think about it although I'll probably say no in the end. Being in tournaments like this tend to become a huge pain in the butt so I really don't feel like participating." He then turned back around and walked out the door.

"Well he was pleasant." Kaya said in a sarcastic tone. "So I guess we mark him as unlikely. Let's look for another person." _Why did I feel like he would have said yes anyway? _Yui thought to herself in curiosity. And for reasons unknown to her, she also felt a twinge of disappointment even though she's supposedly only known him for a short period of time. She should have known that he would turn her down since they didn't really know each other. Actually, they were on bad terms with each other if anything, always tending to argue whenever they ended up having to interact with each other. But somewhere in the back of her mind just told her that she could ask him. She wondered why that happened.

"It seems that she still has that habit although she probably doesn't remember it much." Takeshi said as he walked out of the school building. "Although it was usually _him_ she went to first most of the time…" It was then his phone rang. Takeshi wasn't expecting a phone call today so he cautiously looked at the caller ID before answering it. "It's been a while since you've last called me on the phone, what's up?" He said in his usual rough tone before listening for an answer. "What, you want me to enter the tournament under Yui's team? That's a pretty dumb idea. Weren't you the one who wanted to keep this whole thing a secret?" He then listened to the caller's response. After another minute of two, Takeshi sighed a little. "Fine, I'll join in, are you happy now? I'm hanging up." He then hung up the call and began to message Yui saying that he was going to take part in the tournament. Afterwards, he held up his right hand a bit in a grip similar to how one would hold a sword and he smiled a little out of excitement. _Well, at least I know I'll see __him__ there. This time, I'll make sure to defeat him. _

_Later that day in the game…_

"This is certainly a surprise, I thought you would have still refused, what made you change your mind?" Yui asked as Tetsu, Kana, Raven and herself began walking towards the rendezvous point where they would meet up with Steel, the place being where Yui and Steel usually met up.

"I have my reasons." Tetsu said in response, not really wanting to explain the said reasons.

"Are we really going to be okay with this guy?" Kana asked the other two girls. "He doesn't even have a single weapon equipped! Is he going to fight barehanded?"

"That actually might be the case." Yui said with a nervous laugh remembering when she last teamed up with him to fight off monsters coming at them. _Although he does have a weapon as well. _She thought to herself afterwards remembering that Tetsu wanted to keep it a secret.

"Let's just see what he can do before we jump to conclusions." Raven said not wanting the group to fight. Well, at least before entering the safe zone or else they would be unprepared if they were to be ambushed by monsters. After that, the group just stayed silent for a while as they continued to walk on. As they began to get closer to the meeting place, they could see the figure of a young man sitting on a rock in wait, a gun blade on his back. There was no doubt that this was Steel.

"Sorry we're late Steel-kun!" Yui exclaimed while waving towards her in-game partner as the group entered the safe zone.

"Don't worry about it Yui, I wasn't waiting for too long." Steel said with a smile as he waved back. When he noticed Tetsu however, he had a serious expression on his face which was rare to see with him. Tetsu also had a similar level of seriousness in his face as he moved his fingers to get something out of his inventory. Before long, a spear appeared in Tetsu's right hand as he got into the position to use the throwing skill, causing the spear to glow a bright blue. Steel in response drew his own sword and got ready as Tetsu threw his spear at Steel at full force. Steel charged up for the basic skill for the one handed sword «Vertical» before unleashing it, causing his body to swing the sword downward at the incoming spear, struggling with it for a bit before knocking it down to the ground. In the short period of time that Steel was preoccupied by the spear, Tetsu had taken the opportunity to close the gap and got ahold of his custom made sword which had just finished materializing before using it to attack Steel who blocked the attack. The two were now locking swords, all the while looking at each other with an expression as if they wanted to cut down the person in front of them. Yui hadn't seen such seriousness from either of the two before. She has seen them, in their own respective situations, act aggressive in combat before but it was never like this. _What's going on here? _She wondered in her mind. It was likely that her friends were thinking of something similar.

"I see you have a new sword this time." Steel said to Tetsu as they both tried over power the other.

"Yeah, I made this especially to take you down!" Tetsu said in response. It was then Yui realized what was going on. She remembered how Tetsu mentioned that there was someone he wanted to defeat. _So the person he was talking about was Steel-kun? _Yui thought to herself in surprise as the two combatants jumped back and got ready to continue their battle, the tension only continuing to grow.

**Well, that's the end of that chapter! Man that took a while to write. I think I started writing this chapter around two-three months ago or so but got too busy because of school to finish. Anyway, what did you all think? After reading those reviews, I now have a majority of the story already plotted out! Thanks a bunch and look forward to the next chapter!**

**Forest Dragon Slayer signing off!**


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